Silver
by Imyoshi
Summary: Forced to admit that Crocea Mors didn't feel right in his hands—no matter how he held it—Jaune Arc struggled to overcome this obstacle through the insane idea that Aura could become more than just the armor that protected him. Barriers break as he pushed past the limits of what Aura was capable of, creating and forging his very own weapons from the manifestation of his soul.
1. Silver

**Disclaimer:** I own nothing of RWBY.

* * *

 **Silver**

 **By: Imyoshi**

No matter how he held Crocea Mors—it _never_ felt right.

Maybe it's the sword?

No.

Jaune Arc knew the problem, and it's not the sword. It's him.

Perhaps, there was a reason this was his great-great _grandfather's_ sword, and not his own. In a sad, ironic sort of way, it's all starting to make sense to him why everyone created their own weapon before attending Beacon. You don't create the weapon you want to wield; you create the weapon that felt right.

And Crocea Mors didn't feel right.

No matter how many times he swung it. No matter how firmly he held the grip. And no matter how many time he simply just held it.

It _didn't_ feel right—ever!

As cliché as it sounded, Jaune Arc stubbornly refused to believe it at first. Devoting his time and energy to training, he kept practicing day and night when he had time, sparring with Pyrrha as much as he could. Never wanting to believe he couldn't properly wield Crocea Mors. But over time, he slowly noticed how Pyrrha's smile seemed to get thinner after their spars, more forced, like whenever she said _I'm sorry_. Eventually, he dubbed it her _I'm sorry_ smile. Pyrrha even began choosing her words more carefully, going as far to say nothing at times with an uneven posture.

Of course she'd never outright say it, but Jaune Arc eventually figured it out.

He wasn't improving.

And damn did that hurt to admit.

...

Alone in their team's room, skipping breakfast, Jaune Arc sat on his bed, silently running his hand over his great-great grandfather's sword with a heavy heart. It'd taken some thought—a lot of it—but he'd finally came to terms that the blade would never feel right in his hands. No matter how much he wanted it to.

Don't get him wrong. He still wanted to fight with a sword. It's Arc tradition that he fought with one. And even if he's unfamiliar with his ancestor's blade, he'd still trained to some degree on handling a sword. No point in damaging his progress by learning a totally new weapon and forgoing everything he'd learned up until now. Best try to create a new blade that felt right in his hands instead. Monty knew Jaune didn't want to make all of Pyrrha's time and training go to waste.

Only problem though, he couldn't very well create a weapon here at Beacon. He didn't have the materials, lien, or even the knowledge to create weapons for that matter, very less any clue where to start on creating a new sword. So as much as he hated to admit, Jaune Arc's stuck at square one again. The very same square for when he lied his way into Beacon Academy.

How troublesome.

"Why me?" Jaune sighed, placing Crocea Mors under his bed before falling helplessly flat on the floor. "Why does it always seem like the _universe_ is out to get _me_? What'd I ever do to it?"

He waited patiently for an answer and got nothing but the soft blowing of winds from outside his window. He should probably close that. Getting a cold was the _last_ thing he needed right now. Damn the universe. Damn his resolve. Damn it all.

Not actually getting off the floor, Jaune tried to count the specs of dust bits in the ceiling and air to kill time. In a strange sort of way, the specs kind of resembled him and how little his place in the world truly was. Just another spec of dust in this vast cosmos, insignificant but plentiful. Like him in Remnant. Dust to the wind, and in a way, it's kind of poetic. But he's not much of a poet, and he stopped at around fifty and scoffed at the assumption that Nora actually counted them all. There's just no way that she did. No matter how much she bragged.

And Nora Valkyrie loved to brag.

Strangely, this wasn't the first time such thoughts crossed his mind, him contemplating his place in the universe that was. He'd always pictured himself insignificant compared to everyone else around him. Not in the brooding sense, but in a realistic way. Compared to an ant, he's gigantic. Compared to a building, he's small. And compared to everyone else, he's normal. But none of it matter when contrasted to the universe as a whole. Everyone was insignificant then. And that thought always made his soul feel much lighter.

It filled him with hope.

Feeling a gust of wind hit his face, Jaune glared tiredly, figuring he should really close that damn window before he really did get sick.

Lazily getting up, Jaune didn't see one of Nora's grenade canisters lying on the floor beside his foot, and he unknowingly stepped on it. It didn't explode upon impact—thank Monty for small miracles—but losing his balance was all still fair game. And the Arc had never been known to be a good player.

He tripped and fell straight toward his bed post, hitting his head hard on the hardwood. The pain was quick and inevitable and he remained on his knees, clutching the aching bruise already forming, yelling out a few words ranging from _ow_ to _arg_! But as quick as it came, it's gone. And just like that, he's feeling much better. Like the pain never existed?

Getting up, he rubbed his head, searching for the pain between his locks of hair. Not that he wasn't happy there wasn't any, but pain like that shouldn't just go away as if nothing happened. Pain had to come from somewhere. Injuries equal pain. He's Jaune Arc, which meant he's more prone to injuries than the average person. As such, Jaune Arc was susceptible to pain. Common sense one-o'-one right there. Yet, the equation's not adding up. There's a hidden variable he'd forgotten to divide or multiply—some factor that alleviated pain.

Confused, he pulled back his arm to see a low glow of white emitting from his hand, already fading out, along with any numbing feeling.

"Oh yea." Jaune grinned weakly, watching the white slowly fade from his hand. "I have Aura." Funny how a person could forget the littlest things. "I keep forgetting that's like some sort of invisible armor."

Feeling a lot better, Jaune closed the window and sat on his bed, watching the rest of his Aura glow out in boredom. It's cruel in a poetic sense, Pyrrha said he had a lot of Aura, but he hardly ever used the darn thing outside of healing his wounds after a spar, or acting as his second layer of armor for whenever he fell and hurt himself. And even then that's all a subconscious act on his part. Completely and totally instinctual.

Seemed like such a waste if someone asked him. Aura's just so awesome, amazing even. It healed wounds and made everyone so much stronger. Jaune had even seen Ren fight a Grimm barehanded while using Aura. The things Aura could do just amazed him to no end. It's practically a weapon all on its own. A _weapon_ , that's a better word to explain it. Powerful and—!

Jumping right off his bed, Jaune stared wide eyed at his hand, almost shaking at the sudden mere thought.

Aura? A possible weapon? Could he? No. Was it really _that_ simple? No? Couldn't be?

Could it?

"Can I really?" he wondered, twisting his hand into a familiar position. He outstretched his palm out, making out the white glare with curiosity fit for a child. The thought alone was turning gears. "Is it possible? Is there a way to do this? Can _I_ really do this?"

Could Jaune really figure out a way to use his Aura as a weapon? Could he really do what he's thinking of? He'd never heard of anyone ever doing _that_ with Aura. Granted, he only just learned about Aura less than two months ago, so his understanding on the stuff was practically nonexistent. Even his control, or lack thereof, was imaginary. Still, he'd never seen any other students using their Aura in the way he's contemplating.

There's probably a reason for that though. Maybe it couldn't be done? Maybe it's not even possible? Maybe the control required an Aura control that's astronomical compared to regular standards? Maybe, just maybe, no one else had even thought of it, considered the insane notion? Why should they? They've got weapons, years of training under their belts, and even amazing Semblances. But he didn't! He'd got zero of that. And Jaune Arc's desperate and _just_ insane enough to try!

It's not like anything would change if it proved faulty. That'd just put him back at square one. A not so terrible rebound, but one that sounded terribly unpleasant the more time he devoted time to sulking over it. Besides, Pyrrha did mention he had a large amount of Aura. That had to count for something in the grand scheme of things. He just knew it did. It just had to. He's running out of options to look elsewhere now. The gap between him and his friends was growing wider by the day. Sooner or later, Jaune would become a burden to them. And that idea left a hole in his heart.

Time to throw caution to the wind and jump for it!

Smiling the only way Team JNPR's Fearless Leader could, Jaune Arc, for the first since attending Beacon, headed to the library to pick up books on Aura manipulation and anything else remotely Aura related. If he couldn't create or wield a sword out of metal and wiring, then he'd just have to learn to make and use one out of Aura. Now time to see if Jaune had what it took to make those dreams turn into a reality.

...

Okay! Reading! Not his strong suit. He knew that _now_.

No matter what he did, whatever he read, it didn't stick! Not in the way he hoped. The words on the page just seemed to get lost within seconds as he tried to read them, recite them and then memorize them. That plan didn't work out too well. There were still holes in his memory. And the ones he actually did recall; he couldn't really understand their meanings, anyways. They're just random words he'd forced himself to remember. And the worst part about it, it's not him, it's the books. The reading's all dry and lackluster. He just couldn't breakdown the theories or information written in them.

Perfect.

"Well, okay then." Jaune frowned, placing the book back into the bookshelf. That didn't work. He'd always been more of a note-taker, anyways. Planning his next move, and not shaken in the slightest, he wander off. "Maybe I'll just look online instead? There's gotta be A Dummy's Guide for Aura somewhere online. Maybe even a book, if I'm lucky."

Finding a spot to sit in some random corner, Jaune checked his scroll for anything related to Aura and weapon-based Aura manipulation. The endless searches came up practically the same as the book, but it's slightly easier to understand and digest the info. And it became really simple to understand that the use of Aura for increasing physical strength, be it in punches, kicks or overall body, was indeed a common practice done by Huntsmen. Even the concept of speed and reflexes heighten control theories were drawn-out through trial and error. However, the actual practice of creating a weapon from Aura alone was bitterly absent.

No Huntsmen had ever done it before, or even attempted the idea for that matter. Aura's still too much of a mysterious force of the macrocosm to learn. To unravel the secrets of Aura would be like attempting to learn the secrets of the Grimm. Couldn't be done.

Or it hadn't been done yet.

"My life just keeps getting better." Jaune laughed weakly, banging his head on the wall. He shut off his scroll, busy staring at the library's ceiling, counting the specs of dust again in the air.

He got to two-hundred thirty before giving up.

Still no way Nora actually counted them all. Never happened! Nope!

Closing his eyes, Jaune thought about what do next. He understood he actually had to practice with his Aura. _He got that_. What he didn't know was how he's going to figure out a way to create a sword out of his Aura, or any weapons for that matter. It'd never been done. Hadn't been tested. Nor had it been conceived. Jaune's walking blindly with this one. No one's going to help along the way or hold his hand, and that sad thought actually made him chuckle weakly for a moment.

How sad that he still needed someone to guide him, even this late into the game. Gave a whole new definition of laughing at one's self.

What's even stranger was his current situation kind of reminded him of his ongoing predicament. When he lied his way into Beacon, he had no one and nothing but the clothes on his back, his ancestor's sword, shield and a web of lies. And no matter how he looked at it, there's no two ways about it, Jaune Arc knew he's a liar. His team may have accepted him, but that had done little to erase the turmoil burning in the depths of his soul.

The training wall he'd hit had only worsen the feeling, and all after he thought he made some headway with his training. Killing that Ursa Major and saving Cardin's life a couple of weeks back, had given him the confidence he needed, for a while anyways. What a fool he had been. One win did not equal results. And he'd only now come to terms with that.

That did not mean he could not improve. As far as he knew, Pyrrha believed in him and so did Ren and Nora. Why else would they follow a leader like him? A liar? They must see some potential in him? Somewhere where even he couldn't even see it. More than his parents, that's for sure. So what if he couldn't find the answers to his questions right now, he'd just look harder. And if push came to shove, he'd wing it. Never stopped him before. Somewhere out there was his _silver_ lining, and he's going to find it, no matter what.

Laughing tiredly, Jaune banged his head upon the wall, hating the irony of not finding the answers he's looking for in the library or on his scroll. Eventually, he did stand up, using his last moments of curiosity to stare at his hand. He tried to focus a little to get some of his Aura to appear in the shape of a ball, or any shape, but only a faint, white glow surrounded his body instead.

Monty! He had such a long way to go. But Jaune Arc was determined if nothing else.

"Okay!" Forming a fist, he grinned with his arms out and feet spread apart. "It said on my scroll that I gotta concentrate in order to use my Aura. I have to find my center. Whatever that is? I really hope it's not too hard to find."

 _Beep_! _Beep_!

"Oh no!" Jaune's panicking upon hearing his scroll ringing. He's already running through the library like a madman. "I'm going to be late to Professor Port's class! There's no way I'm getting _his_ detention!"

...

Only a minute late to class, Jaune tried to catch his breath as he sat beside Pyrrha, ignoring some of his fellow classmate's mocking stares as he took his seat. Before they could say so much as a a word to each other, Professor Port was going off on some tale of him ripping apart a Grimm with his bare hands. Soon the lecture turned into a bore, and Jaune had to fight to stay awake. A minute later, he got inspired by the little sketches Ruby's doing in her red, worn-out notebook when she assumed no one was looking. They looked to be designs for her _baby_. Doodles or not, the sketches were good. And as she flipped through the pages, he could partially see past prints and markings of an early design of Crescent Rose.

It really made him think. Ruby must've kept the old details for later use. That way she could go back and improvise or improve on a past design. And Jaune's forced to admit that's smart. He should do something like that. Actually? Why didn't he? If he's going to take this Aura control stuff seriously, best to keep everything he learned in a notebook of some sorts. Jumbled notes were so last season.

And he had just the perfect notebook for the job! The one his adorable, younger sisters gave him before he headed off to Beacon. The little ones that actually believe in him.

Brand new and never been used! Jaune _was_ going to use a notebook for studying, but this was a much better cause. Seriousness outweighs uselessness any day! And Jaune couldn't think of anything more useless than Professor Port's Tales of Youth.

Reaching into his bag, he took out his white notebook and began brainstorming any idea for Aura his mind could muster up, his heart just wasn't into Professor Port's lesson. Well, not anymore than usual. Instead, he's constantly writing little ideas he wanted to try to maybe get better control of his Aura. Possible techniques here and there he'd skimmed over at the library and on his scroll. They're weak and random and completely hypothetical, yet, they're all he had to rely on for the time being. Now nobody couldn't say he's not determined.

Noticing that their Fearless Leader wasn't actually paying any attention to the lesson; Pyrrha tapped him on the shoulder, not _exactly_ worried. "Jaune?"

He looked up, eyes innocent. "Yea, Pyrrha?"

"Um?" She leaned over to see some random doodles he'd done. All their meanings were lost to her. "What are you doing?"

For a second he panicked.

Only a second.

It's not that he didn't want to tell Pyrrha, because he really wanted to, but he couldn't. Not yet. This was _his_ goal, not hers. And she'd already helped him so much already. As an Arc, he wanted to do this alone. Selfish? Maybe considering he had a team. But he'd lied his way into Beacon, it's time he honor the Arc name and made something of himself _by himself_. Not off fake transcripts and borrowing the help from others when he should have never needed it to begin with.

"... Uh?" He not so subtly looked over his paper, stalling for time. Screw it! Time to wing it! "I'm practicing my drawing skills?"

Pyrrha didn't know whether to narrow her eyes or reprimand him for not paying attention. Her leader technically wasn't lying, but she'd be a fool to believe he was being completely honest. Meanwhile, Jaune kept giving her his best winning smile, pressing his forearm on his master plans to shield them from her suspicious stare. She glared between him and the paper a few times, considering the idea to snatch it away from him and catch him in some act, that was in no way beneficial to his class grade, before reluctantly giving him the benefit of the doubt.

For now.

"I can see that, Jaune." She agreed, focusing back on their lesson. "But we're in the middle of a lesson. And you need to pay attention." Pyrrha's eyes softened and she lightly played with her pencil. "I don't want you to get bad grades... and then kicked out."

Seeing the sad smile on the corner of her lip, Jaune reluctantly pushed away his master plan, favoring another blank sheet of paper from a different notebook. He lightly smiled at her, already taking what he called _notes_ from Professor Port's extravagant tales.

"Yea, okay."

His master plan could wait.

...

Jaune's never looked forward to Doctor Oobleck's class. It was always after combat class, so he's always sore right from the beginning. Really sucked the joy out of listening to a man talk at unnatural speeds. At least for a male. And Monty did that get old fast. Not to mention everyone's sweaty, and it just left a sour taste in the air. And history had never been one his strong suit. So the class was just a terrible experience right from the start.

Plus, the man talked too fast for his liking.

At least he sat away from Pyrrha this time. She preferred to be up front, with Weiss, taking all the notes they could under Doctor Oobleck's mile a minute mouth. He couldn't say he felt envious of their position, because he didn't. They could have all the learning they wanted, he's perfectly fine back here. Where Oobleck wasn't watching him like a hawk.

Flipping open his new Aura notebook, Jaune glared at the random doodles he'd already sketched. They're mismatched and directionless—sketches of a madman. Maybe he needed to take a different approach to this inspiration thing? Didn't seem like any payoff could come from this. And none of them made any sense.

He's about to rip the page out, but Oobleck's voice cut through the room like a disease. "And so class! Those who don't know history are destined to repeat it!"

 _Those who don't know history are destined to repeat it_.

Jaune couldn't figure out why, but that phrase left a bitter taste in his mouth. It's almost like Doctor Oobleck was speaking directly to him, stopping him from tearing that page out his notebook. He couldn't really wrap his mind around it. None of it made sense. But then Jaune's attention hovered over Ruby's shoulders, where he got another glimpse of her working on more Crescent Rose's attachment. And whenever she turned the pages, he could see some really worn-out pages in between, some filled with spectacle designs and others filled utter nonsense.

Like the one he's about to rip out.

Letting go of the page, he looked down at the shapely doodles littered across the paper. Would tearing out this page set him back a step on his journey? Throwing away these sketches could come back to haunt him. And who knew? He might be able to work off them. Or at least someone else might be able to.

Mind set, Jaune didn't tear out the page, but simply turned it to begin sketching once more. This time he's more precise with his drawings, keeping them toned down to the basic trio. The square, triangle and circle.

Aura shaped as a square? Sounded hard. Aura shaped as a triangle? That sounded even harder. Now Aura in the shape of a circle? That actually sounded doable. There were no pesky edges to worry about. Kind of reminded him of clay. The easiest shape to mold was always a circle. So that's the shape he focused on.

Jaune practically tuned out the remainder of the class, but he's pulled back in when the word _Aura_ popped up.

"Now! Can anyone tell my how a Huntsmen fights without a weapon at their disposal?"

Surprisingly enough, his teammate Ren beat everyone else to the punch, raising his hand up in an almost desperate fashion. It had been a tad too slow to be called determined, but he definitely showed more incentive that normal. And that's asking a lot from the sloth of the group. Now he's sorely curious to Ren's response.

"They usually end up fighting with their bare hands, or using the area to their advantage. With the use of Aura, their physical power can make up for the lost of their weapon. It's not the most practical way of fighting if you're not accustom to hand-to-hand combat, but it's better than nothing."

Oobleck huffed in a good way. "Very good! Now? How does one train their Aura? A strong Aura means a stronger body."

Ren shrugged. "Aura training is subjective. Some people's Aura simply grow on their own, others like to train the mind. Others do both. My method is mediation. A clear mind can make control all the more simpler."

"Correct! Very good! Now!" Professor Oobleck began lecturing on the various ways to beat someone into submission, Grimm or human, so Jaune tuned him out again.

His eyes found their way toward Ren, who sat a row below him, note taking in the driest sense of the word. Jaune actually found it odd. Ren never took notes, but always appeared to have the answer for questions pertaining to training and Aura. Then again, this was the guy who actually studied in the library, all those books have to be good for something. So there's that.

The Arc actually found it bewildering. By a stroke of _luck_ , he'd learned something about Aura, and from Ren of all people. Not to say he didn't expect anyone in Beacon to not know what Aura is, just that it's weird to hear if from his friend. The guy's usually so monotone about everything, so the small pitch in his voice was like the volume of Team RWBY's snoring.

In other words, Ren must practice Aura control on his free time.

Good to know.

Tracing that same circle in his Aura notebook, Jaune sighed. The words mediation and clear mind bombarded his thoughts like a blast from Nora's grenade launcher. He had no way to fault said logic, knowing little to nothing about Aura. Which meant he's tempted to try Ren's idea of Aura control training. Anything to make the first step of this new journey.

Jaune's so lost in drawing the circle, he didn't realize that class ended. Only Nora's yell out for _food_ brought him back. And the Arc shared in her sentiment, ravenous for a good meal. Skipping breakfast may have proved to be one of his less than stellar decisions, if the rumbling in his stomach was anything to go by. Lunch certainly got devoured during combat class.

He'd get some Aura practice in later.

Holding his Aura notebook up, he frowned as the rest of the class headed off for dinner. The circle glared back at him, while Ren's knowledge fueled his thought process, and the gears in his head churned.

Breaking it all down, he had a design, a method, and an idea to turn this dream into a reality. It's not much—hardly anything—but it's all he had.

And for now, that's more than enough.

...

Having consumed his dinner quickly this night, Jaune's residing in his team's dorm in what he called a meditative position. The lights were off to keep distractions away. He'd been trying constantly to manipulate his Aura into even the rough beginnings of a ball, but only so far had gotten his white Aura glow instead. It haunted him like a shadow, but bright.

For more than a week, he'd been doing this in secret and had no success whatsoever.

"How does Ren do this?" Meditation was hard. And his feet were cramping up. "I don't even know how to clear my mind! What does that even mean?!"

Trying yet again with his palm flat out, he focused hard on forcing his Aura toward his palm, but got absolutely nothing for results. He went over the process for a whole hour with no change worth nothing. Damn the universe. Darn empty space had it out to get him.

"Ah! Damn it!" Jaune fell flat down onto the floor, arms out. He tiredly looked under his bed to see Crocea Mors just collecting dust. The sight unsettled him. An unpleasant-butterfly like feeling stewed in his stomach. "I need to figure this out."

Easier said than done.

No matter how hard he tried, or how much he focused, he couldn't seem to focus his Aura in the right way. Team JNPR's leader wasn't even sure if he's trying to focus the Aura in the correct form! Hell! He didn't even know if he'd been doing anything remotely right to begin with! He'd got no results to show for it. Nothing major had changed since he started simple meditation. He couldn't even figure out if his control over Aura had changed at all.

Maybe it really couldn't be done?

Lifting his hand above his head, Jaune focused yet again, eyes narrowed, and watched as his hand glowed the comforting white Aura he'd grown accustom to. He tried to keep his focus, he really did, but he suddenly got distracted when a lone speck of dust, floating in the air, passed his line-of-sight. This focused his eyes back toward the ceiling where he found himself counting the specs once again. And again, he couldn't help but wonder his place in the universe.

Even these tiny specs of dust, floating in an empty space, seemed just as large as he was when his thoughts drifted together. Stars—galaxies—the moon! They all made him feel so small. Yet, comparing everything else around him, they were just as small as him. No matter how large the stars, or how bright they were, there were just as many larger or even brighter than those out there, somewhere. Really made dust counting not seem so insignificant compared to how utterly insignificant everything around him really was.

Lost shuffling between all the dust particles floating in the air, it's not until he's at one-thousand, two-hundred, twenty-seven that he remembered he was supposed to be focusing! Not counting!

Free from his distraction and glaring back at his hand, Jaune's eyes went wide as he quickly sat up to stare at his open palm. Right there, in the dead center of his hand, was his Aura in roughly the shape of a sphere. It had some edges, was constantly fizzing in and out of existence, and had small bits of Aura the size of dust surrounding it, but it was there! Right there!

Brighter than anything else in his team's room.

"No way!" Jaune grinned wholeheartedly for the first time, standing up slowly in the illuminated room. His grin stretched wider as the ball of fizzing Aura started to become more permanent with the edges smoothing out. "There's just no way!"

The ball of Aura finally became stable and its glow brightened the semi-dark room, practically washing away all the shadows hiding in the corners. The glow's actually draining to look at. It hurt. But that's probably due to him being locked in a room with nothing but darkness hanging over his shoulder for the better part of a few hours.

"I did it?" he laughed, not believing even his _own_ words. It's just too much. Too much! "I actually did it!"

Taking a leap of faith, Jaune slowly closed his hand around the ball of Aura, and prayed it wouldn't die out with his breathing getting heavier by the second. A moment later, when he reopened his hand, it's still there, brighter even. Jaune would even go as far as to turn his hand upside down to see if it would fall.

It did not.

For a moment, just a moment, Jaune considered jumping up for joy and running out to his teammates to show him what he had accomplished. But he crushed that planned immediately and instead stared intently at the white ball of energy and heat in front of him.

How _exactly_ did he manage this?

Don't get him wrong—he's damn near crying tears of joy at this point—but he'd rather know how he did this, than brag that he actually managed to do it. There's a huge difference. Jaune Arc preferred to know the _how_ and _why_ , rather than the _see_ and _look_. And as far as he knew, he'd done nothing different from the previous nights he'd tried focusing on his Aura. Just sit and concentrate. That's all he'd been doing, nothing new. Nothing different.

So what changed this time?

Moving the ball far closer to his face, Jaune almost flinched at how bright the thing had managed to get. Luckily, it's not _too_ bright. It's actually kind of warm. And he couldn't help but marvel at how easy it was to maintain _once he_ actually managed to create it.

It's almost like breathing at this point.

Daring himself to do it, Jaune allowed the ball of Aura to die out, and he almost hit himself for doing something so stupid. But instead, he extended his palm out and focused once more, searching his soul for his Aura. And at first, he's scared—terrified—when only his normal layer of white Aura covered his body, but the panic quickly died when he saw—no!

When he _felt_ the Aura manipulating into a sphere.

Tiny specs of Aura, in the shape and size of dust, started to bridge away from his hand to slowly condense at a center point that's above his palm. The process soon picked up and the Aura sphere became whole once more, idly hovering over his palm in a constant glow of light and comforting warmth. Breathtaking didn't even come close to describing the phenomenon.

"I'm really doing it!" The ball of Aura glowed brightly in response to Jaune's emotional outburst. It really was like breathing at this point! "I actually somehow found a way to—!"

 _Knock_! _Knock_! _Knock_!

Whipping his head toward the door, Jaune panicked and peered down at the ball of Aura in his hand, willing it away in haste. Best not to show anyone _just yet_ , surprise and all. Besides, it's a ball, not a sword. Nothing to write home to his seven sister about.

Opening the door, Jaune came face-to-face with Weiss. He couldn't help but be surprised. He's pretty sure she knew the rest of his team was down in the Mess Hall with her own. It's not like he'd made it a secret he'd been eating in his room recently. Everyone knew that. Her presence just baffled him. Still, it was Weiss.

"Snow Angel!" Jaune smiled automatically, enjoying the way her cheeks puff out in irritation from her nickname. She's almost Ruby level adorable whenever she did that. "What brings you here? Not that I'm complaining."

Weiss decided to ignore his flirting and instead crossed her arms. "Your team sent me? They wanted me to come get you and drag your butt over to the Mess Hall. They don't like how their _Fearless Leader_ is spending his dinnertime in his room over them."

He tilted his head. "Why didn't they just come and get me?"

She huffed. "Because you won't say no to me."

Smart.

Jaune almost felt like arguing, but he paused. He did just get a step closer to discovering a way to making his Aura based sword and weaponry. Maybe he could indulge himself with a well earned break and delicious food? Science did say a full stomach was better for the mind.

Lowering his arms out, he gestured for her to move. "Lead the way, Snow Angel."

"Stop calling me that!"

...

Dinner with his teammates was a bit awkward—only a bit.

It's not like he'd been avoiding them, so the idea of tension hanging over their heads was a fool's dream. He'd just been a little preoccupied as of late. At least he got something to show for it now.

"So, Jaune!" Nora hummed as she absently stabbed into her dinner pancakes drenched in a criminally insane amount of syrup. "What were you doing in our room alone? Something naughty? Was it something top secret? Oh! It is! Isn't it!" She slammed her hands onto the table, leaning as close as possible toward him from the other end. "Tell me! I can keep a secret!"

"No you can't." Jaune answered, eyeing his sandwich. He was feeling quite peckish.

Nora stood up and pointed accusingly at him, threatening him with all her five foot one majesty. "So it is something top secret! Now you gotta tell me!"

Jaune didn't know where she came up with _that_ assumption, but he did answer her with a large bite of his sandwich, mumbling complete nonsense to his bubbly teammate. He shrugged as a mock apology when he knew she couldn't understand him, and smirked a little into his meal. Victory never tasted so good.

Never one to give up on anything, Nora latched onto Ren's arm, shaking him relentlessly. She even went as far as to pout her lip with her head pressed into his chest. "Ren! Make Jaune tell me his secret."

Pyrrha only watched in amusement as Ren easily folded under Nora's pout. She had him practically wrapped around her trigger-happy finger. It's cute in a not together-together sort of way.

Unable to say _no_ to Nora, Ren sighed. "Jaune—?"

"Nope!"

Ren halfheartedly shrugged with Nora still clinging onto his arm. "I tried, Nora."

"Aw!" Huffing, Nora stabbed her pancake and chewed it strongly. Then her eyes grew in size as she leaned forward and poked Jaune with her syrup covered fork. "You were trying to count the specs of dust on the ceiling, weren't you?"

Jaune flinched, pausing in the chewing of his meal, finding it amusing that there was indeed some truth to Nora's claim. He had been counting the specs of dust in the ceiling and air when—!

Wait a damn second!

Ignoring the jab of syrup on his shirt, Jaune recalled the moment when he was lost counting the specs of dust. His focus at the time had been clear on only one thing, and one thing only. Everything else around hadn't distracted him. He had been free from it all.

His mind had been clear? Just like what mediation required—a clear mind!

Except the only difference, he hadn't been focusing on trying to transform his Aura into a ball at the time. Maybe that was a distraction? And all he needed to actually transform the Aura into a ball was to just unconsciously do it? As strange and impossible as that sounded. And it did sound painstakingly impossible. The logic behind it was simply missing.

Of course it's all just a theory.

A theory he planned to test later.

Feeling a jab from Nora's fork again, Jaune focused back on her, smiling a lot larger now thanks to her help. He'd find a way to thank her. _Jab_! _Jab_! _Jab_! Maybe he'd find a way thank her.

"Yup!" Jaune dodged Nora's fork, sliding just out of her reach. "Sometimes I'm counting the specs in the ceiling and the air. It gets easier each time I do it."

"Well! You can just stop right there, Fearless Leader!" Nora declared, using Ren's own hand to point at Jaune. There's a fire in her eye. "No one but Ren and I know how many specs there are!"

"Just to clarify..." Ren added. "I don't."

"Yea!" Nora ignored him, stabbing her delicious pancake with emotion. She's still using Ren's hand. "So just give up! Only the chosen ones can count them all!" Their leader almost choked on his food. Chosen ones? Really? Sometimes Jaune didn't know if Nora's being serious or not. Hard to tell. "Tough luck."

He grinned. "Then I guess I'm going to be a chosen one." Trailed their leader, finishing the rest of his meal. He'd play along.

"Nope!" she stubbornly refused. "If you can actually count them all, then I will quit eating pancakes for two months! But that's not possible! Case closed!"

Oh? Jaune stared. She's being one-hundred percent serious.

Challenge accepted.

"But I can..." he mocked, bluntly ignoring Ren's warning signs not to fight her. "I know I can. So you best pick a new favorite food to eat, Nora. Because your pancakes are as good as mine! I'll have them all counted by the end of the month." She'd never been one to back down. Especially not when it's a sure thing. And that's the bait he's throwing out there. "Unless you're scared? You can still back out. I am pretty fearless."

"Fine! I accept your challenge, Fearless Leader!" Nora stood up, pulling Ren alongside her. Pyrrha couldn't stop drinking her juice in acute anticipation. "But if you can't... I-I get to give you a haircut!"

"Deal."

...

After their little bet, Jaune used up all his free time manipulating the ball of Aura in his hands whenever the chance came up. He kept up his training with Pyrrha to get rid of any suspicion, though he could see it through her eyes that his progress had not furthered. Even adding Aura to Crocea Mors during their sparring sessions didn't make the blade feel anymore _right_ in his hands than before.

Surprisingly, it didn't bother him as much as it probably should. He couldn't blame Pyrrha for still trying. Sometimes his partner's too nice for her own good. A blessing and a curse if he ever saw one.

It had taken him a little over a week, but he finally managed to do two Aura balls in both hands at the same time. He's still trying to find a way to transform the balls into something else like a line. For now, they're just spheres of Aura. Luckily, his large Aura reserves allowed him to constantly practice without too much trouble. It also didn't hurt that most of the Aura he used, tended to come back to him, as long as he didn't forgo control.

Thank Monty for small miracles.

And the counting of dust really did help—silly as that sounded—and he felt the Aura control in his body a whole lot sharper than the previous weeks prior. Jaune's starting to think that maybe he found a shortcut to Aura manipulation? For it shouldn't be _this_ _easy_ to control and manipulate Aura. There had to be some sort of catch he's not seeing.

Maybe it correlated with the vast amount of Aura he had? Aura weapons could require a certain amount of Aura to conjugate. He simply couldn't imagine everyone having a vast amount of Aura at their disposal. Not after what Pyrrha told him. It must vary between each person. And he doubly couldn't imagine Aura weapons needing only a small garner of power. That didn't make too much sense, either. Really, the question was up in the air. Better left to someone with a better grasp on the concepts of Aura.

Of course there's always the off chance he's some sort of Aura prodigy. Not likely, but a small off chance.

Eh, who's he to complain?

Lost again at counting the specs in the air, Jaune stopped around at thirty-five thousand, seven-hundred, one. He then looked at the balls of Aura in his hands and frowned at their still relative same boring shape.

Progress remained fruitless in the past week.

"Darn!" He huffed before sitting up, glaring weakly at the two of them. "What does it take to make you change?"

Moving the Aura between his palms, Jaune occasionally combined them together and then split them apart. That trick alone took him two days to successfully pull off. He didn't even want to imagine how long creating a sword was going to take.

Crushing the balls of intangible Aura in his hands, he could see the light of his Aura seeping through the shadows of his fingers. Every few seconds, he opened his hands, hoping to seem some kind of change. But nope! Nothing! There's never anything new to add to his Aura notebook. And he'd already filled the first few pages with whatever notes he could figure out.

Frustrated, Jaune banged his head with his hands, falling flat back onto the floor while releasing a puff of air. He soon stopped banging his head and instead settled to wrap one hand around his fist, watching the glow of Aura grow brightly due to his flaying emotions. Something he'd come to learn about Aura as well. Emotions could affect the strange power. Depending on how he acted, sometimes the glow varied.

It was a footnote he learned early on.

Overlooking his hands, Jaune tilted his head toward the direction where his great-great grandfather's sword Crocea Mors had been resting. There's a small collection of grime on it now from the weeks of misuse and neglect. Only areas where the blade's metal have made contact with other weapons was free from dirt. That and the handle.

Some memories of that sword came clawing back to Jaune, some good and some bad. He could still remember when he first picked it up as a child, and the lectured his parents gave him afterwards. He could remember swinging it for the first time and falling from the heavy weight, and how his grandfather helped him up right after. He could even remember polishing Crocea Mors over and over after killing his first Grimm, and every other Grimm after that.

They were all good memories.

Feeling a little better now, Jaune relaxed, no longer feeling conflicted, and pulled his hands apart. As he did, a powerful white glow emitted from his palms as he began to separate the two. Eyes wide, Jaune stopped to see a line of pure white extending out from his fist and connecting to his open palm. The glow was so damn bright it almost hurt to look at. He almost wanted to close his hands to push the light away— _almost_.

Instead, Jaune pulled his hands away, allowing the light to extend. He found it harder and harder to separate his hands apart, like the Aura's working against him, but he didn't falter. This might be his only chance. He'd come too far to back out now!

He jumped up, struggling to pull his arms apart. "C'mon! I can do this! Please! Don't go out on me now! I need you. Please don't go out!"

As if to answer his call, his white Aura glowed impossibly brighter, blinding even him for a short second, before he finally managed to pull his hands apart.

Jaune actually fell back from the sudden release of his hands, crashing hard into the wall. The pain immediately blurred away, just like the first time he hit his head, and when he glared down at his hand, he saw a line of cracked, white Aura glowing beautifully between his fingers. The glistening radiance mocked the understanding foundation of Aura to its core.

And Jaune Arc managed to do it all by himself.

"No way."

He panicked. Who wouldn't? He's afraid to actually move. Eventually, out of fear and curiosity, he slowly touched the line of Aura with his free hand and didn't feel anything threatening. The line actually almost broke in his hand, cracking from the mere touch, and Jaune forced as much Aura as possible into his arm to keep it from breaking.

He barely saved it.

Chuckling, he stood up, using the wall as leverage to stand. There's a soreness in his eyes, timeworn tiredness from finally accomplishing his goal. Of course he couldn't help but tilt the line of Aura, wanting to get a good luck of his creation. There were still cracks and here and there, but if it's anything like the sphere, a little time will fix that.

"It's weak..." he grinned anyways. "But I finally did it!"

Allowing the line of Aura to fade out, Jaune tried to produce the line again, but nothing happened. If this had been a couple of weeks ago, Jaune Arc would've panicked liked crazy. But this wasn't a couple of weeks ago. He'd a far better handle on his Aura now. If he could manage it once, then it's definitely possible a second time.

Retracing his steps, Jaune closed his hand, forming a tight fist. He then peered over to his other hand and slowly overlapped it with the other. Finally, he tried to focus his Aura again.

The white light was blinding, and Jaune figured he should buy a pair of sunglasses in the near future, but the results were immediate.

Slowly pulling his hands apart, he could see the line forming, and he could feel the resistant force working against him again. Only this time it's much weaker than before, and the lines were coming out a whole lot sharper now. But the sword's there when he finally did pull apart his hands, barely longer than Crocea Mors.

"I finally did it!" Jaune stared at the barely passable sword of Aura in his hand with awe. "I finally created my own weapon!"

It's plain, boring, and had no other features except for its straight line, but it's his. He made it.

And Jaune Arc couldn't be prouder.

...

Pyrrha Nikos was worried. Beyond worried even.

And it all had something to do with her clumsy, easy-going, blond noodle of a leader.

She couldn't be exactly sure when her anxiety first started. Was it the day Jaune's skills hit a wall? The day there sparring session turned into her daily lie, lie, and lie some more routine in an effort to protect him. Or even the day when her leader felt obligated to eat alone in their team's room for whatever crazy reason he'd conjured up for himself.

Really, she'd lost track of the days.

Waiting for her team to grab their dinners, she occupied the table, alone, allowing her thoughts to run rampant at trying to find a solution to a problem that hadn't even completely revealed itself to her. Foreign, different, unknown, that's how her leader was acting, and none of it made any sense whatsoever. None.

Perhaps, if she truly thought about—truly looked hard enough—remembered hard enough, she could recall when his strange behavior started. But in all honesty, the action's a waste of time. Pyrrha already knew when his attitude changed, differed, altered.

It wasn't the training, nor the lying of his transcripts. Though to be completely fair, that did change her perspective on her leader. No, the moment was during their trip to Forever Fall. When he saved Cardin Winchester's life, after she intervened, saved and altered his path. Protecting them both from a Ursa Major and allowing him to come out the hero. A push in the right direction.

A small push that came from her Semblance. And even then that push had been too hard. Too much.

At first she had been so proud of him. So proud of his accomplishment. Too proud even.

Now only regret hinderd around her.

Because in hindsight, as gruesome and terrible as it sounded, Pyrrha probably should've allowed Jaune to taste the feeling of defeat in a life and death moment. Defeat drives others to work harder, _train_ harder. It's a taste no one loved and wished to never have the experience of coming face-to-face again.

Maybe that's where she'd screwed up. By not allowing her leader to lose, his drive remained unchanged. Undeterred in an environment and profession that truly mattered. And now he must've discovered the wall he'd hit in training or at least assumed. Assumed that nothing's changed. Assumed the Cardin fiasco had all been a terrible fluke.

And if Pyrrha's learned anything about her leader, he's prone to excluding himself whenever a problem presents itself. For all she knew, he'd fallen back into hiding behind smiles that may even be more convincing that her own. Fooling everyone around him except for the people purposely trying to see underneath the underneath. Beneath the subtext, maybe even lower than that.

Well, it's not so plain and simple anymore. Jaune still trained, still fought every night with her with grins she couldn't even be certain were fake. She's not going to give up on him. That much was certain. She couldn't. She wouldn't!

Not when he's trying so hard to better himself.

But how could she help someone who'd somehow closed himself off to his team while remaining unconditionally the same? That therein laid the problem.

Playing around with the food on her plate, her eyes remain unfocused, even when Nora's unmistakably destroyed something across the Mess Hall. "Jaune... what's wrong?"

...

Spending the last couple of weeks on his Aura control, Jaune managed to add his family's crest as the hilt to his new Aura blade anytime he summoned it. He'd even improved the overall durability of the sword with heighten control, keeping it from breaking from a simple touch. And through tiring manipulation, had managed to lower the brightness that came from it. Other than that, the sword of Aura remained relatively the same. There was no point in changing up the grip.

It never hurt Jaune when he bent his hand in an uncomfortable angle.

No matter how he held it—the sword always felt _right_.

Near the edge of Emerald Forest, Jaune's repeatedly slashing his new blade against the trunks of nearby trees. Testing the strength and durability in secret, he discovered no matter how little or how much Aura he placed into the blade, at least now when his control was better, it never got any sharper or duller. Jaune couldn't even feel the weight of the blade in his hands, totally foreign to the effects of gravity. Dropping the blade made it dissolve in seconds, and the sword seemed to never bend under pressure either. Not like he expected it to.

Jaune didn't think Aura could bend or break.

He also never felt it falter in his grip.

Well, maybe _felt_ wasn't the exact word he would choose. Since the blade of Aura didn't _exactly_ have any form, weight or a physical form when it honestly came down it, it felt like Jaune was just swinging his hand whenever he slashed. Plus, with his heightened Aura control, he felt much faster on his feet as long as he constantly kept the Aura blade existing.

Just another note added to the Aura notebook. Along with other observations he'd made over the past month. Words such as _manifestation_ and _soul_ made him wonder—made him think.

Jaune Arc couldn't help but wonder if the Aura blade was an extension of his soul?

...

Training with Pyrrha still hadn't changed. Jaune had made very little progress in that department, and Pyrrha still refused to tell him that, hiding behind her empty words and lost smiles. Maybe Jaune should finally confront her about that? Couldn't be too good to keep bottled up.

Note aside, he'd forgo trying to add Aura to Crocea Mors altogether. Adding Aura to a sword didn't exactly do much except maybe increase the sword's durability. If anything, the actual power came from the user, and since Crocea Mors still didn't feel _right_ in Jaune's hand, he'd settled to using his new found Aura control on his body instead.

The effects were somewhat noticeable when he's not using his Aura blade compared to when he was in Emerald Forest. Jaune could feel that his senses had become sharper to a point from his better Aura control. His agility was better and his muscles enjoyed the extra the firepower from using his Aura blade. There's always a small drawback from slight discomfort whenever he willed his Aura control away, but he didn't think much of it. Muscles soreness couldn't possibly be that tasking on his body.

Adding Aura to Crocea Mors didn't give him any of that, sometimes it felt like Crocea Mors was actually _rejecting_ his Aura. What's even worse than the idea of rejecting his Aura, Crocea Mors also appeared to disrupt Jaune's Aura control to practically nonexistent. The darn sword did not like Aura, that hurt to admit, almost as much as not being able to wield Crocea Mors or the weakness reflected back in Pyrrha's eyes.

Of course that could all just be his limitless imagination.

Still, he'd learned trying to keep Aura constantly locked and pouring within his great-great grandfather's blade was far too troublesome versus keeping his Aura blade flowing, which was far easier, safer, and overall just plain better.

Seriously? Why waste the Aura?

...

Alone in his team's room, Jaune's sitting on his bed, staring at his unnamed blade, trying for the life of him to come up with a super awesome name for it. Maybe something with an _Ex_? Words with _Ex_ have always sounded awesome! Like extreme or explosion or even execution!

Dear Monty did those sound cool!

"Hn?" he mused, tilting the blade. He'd long gotten use to its impressive glow. Apparently, it came with having the Aura. "Do you have any idea how much meditation and spec counting I did in order to create you? The caliber needed to make you was... ugh! Heck! I don't think caliber is strong enough of a word to describe you! You were beyond extreme! Excruciating! Ex-caliber even! And that's not even a word!"

Jaune was about to make the sword vanish, as it was lunch and he was famished, when his eyes widened in thought.

Ex... caliber? Ex-caliber? Excalibur?

"Hey? Now that sounds awesome!" He laughed, making the sword disappear in a flash of light. "I'll call you, Excalibur! It's short, sweet, rolls off the tongue, and the ladies will love it!"

...

In line for lunch, Jaune glared over to find his team enjoying their meals with Team RWBY, laughing at some joke he's sure Nora would tell him as soon as he got there. And speaking of Nora.

Smirking, he walked confidently over to his friends, and stopped and stared at Nora who had a certain gleam in her eyes. Everyone else had stopped their conversation as well, knowing full well of the bet going on between the two. And the story was coming to an end.

Ignoring the rest of his friends, Jaune grinned in only a way that Yang could pull off, and swiped Nora's pancakes away from her fingers.

"Hey!" Nora yelled, reaching out for her pancakes. "You can't just steal my—!"

"There are one billion, sixty-five million, four hundred twenty-seven thousand, three hundred twelve and a half specs of dust in our ceiling." Jaune gently flicked Nora on the forehead, taking a bite of one _her_ pancakes.

Everyone waited in anticipation for Nora to call his ridiculous number wrong. What happened next would never leave their memories.

Falling to her knees, Nora hung her head in total defeat on the floor, whimpering a long sad _no_ at the sudden loss of her beloved pancakes. A random storm cloud hovered over her defeated form, drenching the Valkyrie in a hailstorm of rain and regret. Turned out that storm cloud was Ren, and he's hovering over Nora, shaking his head in defeat. But at least he's comforting her with a simple hand-to-shoulder gesture, the best he could do for now. After all, he's not allowed to cook her pancakes.

Meanwhile, Team JNPR's Fearless Leader savored each and every bite of Nora's irreplaceable pancakes, enjoying the sweet, _sweet_ taste of victory.

Exquisite.

* * *

 **Author Notes:** Edited - **11/05/2017**


	2. Slate

**Disclaimer:** I own nothing of RWBY.

* * *

 **Slate**

 **By: Imyoshi**

The day had finally arrived!

Today was the day Jaune Arc planned to reveal his Aura skills to everyone.

After almost two months of practicing and training, and plenty of planning, Jaune finally felt confident enough in his own abilities. And what better place to show off than no other than Professor Goodwitch's combat class—in front of everyone he knew or mocked him!

Oh! He could feel his blood pumping excitedly throughout his body. The anticipation was almost killing him. It hurt even to even think about. No? Wait? That's just Nora poking him in the arm with her fork. Her syrupy-free fork.

Honestly, he personally thought she would've already gotten over the fact he stole her pancakes by now. It's not like he didn't earn them. Counting all those specs of dust took _forever_. Yet, even after losing their little bet, she's still insistent on poking him with her syrup-free fork every chance she got. And she had many, _many_ chances.

Eh? Jaune shrugged while taking a bite of one of _Nora's_ pancakes. He'd never understand Nora and her crazy antics sometimes, or why she loved these plates of flour and milk so much. The thoughts that went on in that girl's head would forever remain a mystery to the Arc. Next to girl talk and what colors matched with others. But, to be fair, that's a common problem for all males.

Sitting with only his team for a change, Jaune chewed confidently through his delicious lunch, not deterred by his bubbly teammate in the slightest. An impressive feat all on its own, second to Ren of course. Dude's built to last and survive the apocalypse when it came.

"So... Jaune?" Pyrrha smiled, enjoying the taste of her salad and ignoring the way Nora kept jabbing their Fearless Leader. Very rarely nowadays did he partake in lunch. She missed him. "You seem to be in a good mood. Anything you wanna tell us?"

"Yea!" Nora added, hesitantly grabbing a forkful of her salad. She slowly tasted a healthy leaf before quickly spitting it out! How could anyone eat this stuff? Poison! "Are you finally going to reveal on how you cheated on our bet?"

The rest of the team sighed; she'd been saying that every day for the past two months and wouldn't let it go. Ironically, today was the last day of her pancake free punishment, but she wouldn't drop it for the death of her. Literally! She had occasionally surprise-tackled Jaune out of nowhere, demanding he admit to fraud. Admit to cheating on their little bet! Admit to anything that'd make him look like the bad guy!

Of course he never did.

And the amusing smirk he always had probably hadn't helped either.

Grabbing Nora's fork before she could _jab_ their leader for the two-hundredth time that day, Ren calmly spoke on his behalf. "Nora, how would Jaune know how many specs of Dust were in our room unless he counted them all?"

Ren had long since accepted that their leader did in fact count _all_ the specs of Dust in their room—as ridiculous as that may sound. And to the rational ninja on their team, it did sound completely ridiculous. There's just no fighting it.

"I bet he found the number in my diary!" she accused him without reasoning, reaching again for her trusty fork.

Ren quickly stopped her, holding the fork away. "You don't have a diary, Nora?"

"Isn't that convenient?!"

Jaune watched them bicker, highly amused. Sometimes he wondered when those two would get together or together-together as Nora so elegantly put it. Kind of obvious. Took a complete and utter fool not to notice a female's attention.

 _Beep_! _Beep_!

Hearing the all telltale signs of the dismissal bell, everyone in the Mess Hall quickly hurried to finish their meals and head to their normal classes. Team JNPR not any different, even if Nora was hovering a bit closer to Jaune than he felt comfortable with. After all, he could see the subtle— _not subtle_ —way she was hiding her second fork in the folds of her combat skirt. Plus, the devilish gleam in her eyes did absolutely nothing to quell his suspicions.

Either way, it did nothing to dampen or sour his mood. _Jab_! _Jab_! _Jab_! Nora was so going to get it later.

Entering Professor Goodwitch's classroom, his team found their seats with them noticing Jaune's unusual confident stride. His posture even appeared a lot stronger with his back straight and his arms almost shaking with an unknown vigor. They've never seen their Fearless Leader act like this before in combat class. Usually, strong paranoia and calm nervousness surrounded their leader in combat class. Never this.

Never bravery.

Nora looked down at her fork. Maybe she should stop poking him before something bad happened?

Not noticing his team's concerned looks, Jaune, for the first time since coming to Beacon, planned to volunteer to go first for sparring practice. He had Crocea Mors with him for show, not actually planning to use it. He's already focusing the Aura in his body, feeling its power flowing through him from his intense Aura control. Nerves spring to life and his heart beat strongly in his chest.

Granted, he's not totally sure he could win, but he couldn't ignore the fact that when he's using Excalibur, his strength and speed felt a whole lot different compared to when he's using only Crocea Mors. It's sad that Crocea Mors didn't feel _right_ whenever he wielded the blade, but Jaune knew using a weapon that couldn't be controlled could only lead to an early death. The _why must the good die young_ cliché wouldn't get to him.

No way, no how.

Waiting for Professor Goodwitch to finish whatever it was she was doing, Jaune tried to calm down. No need to act so crazy. That's Nora's job. And Monty forbid he stole something else of hers. Besides, he really needed to focus. Not worry about the impending wrath of the misguided Valkyrie.

"Alright, attention students!" Professor Goodwitch demanded, pushing her glasses into place. The room immediately quieted down. "As you know, this is combat class where we pit you against each other in a friendly spar. But today it's going to be a little different. Today, you'll be heading to Emerald Forest to fight off an increased number of Grimm. This will be good practice and will help lower the number of Grimm in the vicinity as well." Professor Goodwitch began walking out the class. "I will be grading you based off your team's performance. So please... do not get yourselves killed."

No one really accepted the threat seriously as they rejoiced at the idea of having class outside today. Some fresh air and deadly, soulless Grimm killing did the body good. And as the students left in a hurry, Jaune remained behind the group, his grin practically gone. What was he to do now? He could just wait a day? Seemed like a reasonable idea? But then again, they were being graded on this and Jaune was not doing so well in Professor Goodwitch's class.

Oh well! No harm done!

He could just show his new skills off at Emerald Forest.

...

He couldn't show off anything here!

It's funny, downright hilarious actually. All it took was one little thing to ruin someone's day. One little thing!

Honestly? What's the point of having an Aura sword if it couldn't actually hit the giant Nevermores _flying_ over his head? Thank Monty they weren't as big as the one during initiation, but sword versus bird usually ended up in the bird's favor. No questioned! And he's on the losing side of that gamble.

Of course everyone else had no problem hitting the monsters in the sky with their guns and vials of Dust. Both of which, Jaune had the sad misfortune of not possessing. All he had was Crocea Mors and his hidden Aura blade. Neither had the ability to hit a flying Nevermore or any airborne target for that matter. Again, it's the little things that could ruin a person's day.

Hanging his head in defeat, Jaune sighed as he watched his teammates take down a few Nevermores from a distance. He could distinctly see Team RWBY finish off their own round of Nevermores, using their weapon's gun forms, and Weiss using her seemingly endless supply of Dust at her disposal.

"Damn it." Jaune cursed, running toward his team. The least he could do was provide support and guidance for them. So far it looked like Excalibur wasn't going to see any action today. "I'm so useless here."

Catching up to his team, he watched as Pyrrha shot down a Nevermore with Ren and Nora handling their own as well. All their weapons had been switched to long-range. And once again, Jaune felt out of place at Beacon. Again, he felt more alone. An outcast amongst a crowd of powerful fighters. A liar and a cheat that didn't deserve to be here.

Gripping Crocea Mors, Jaune narrowed his eyes at the monstrous sky.

No doubt about it! He needed a long-range weapon.

...

Jaune learned to use Doctor Oobleck's class to his advantage since he first started brainstorming. He'd gone all out on his notes, adding footnotes and tidying up sections that lacked proper labeling. Jaune even added diagrams of Excalibur and the sphere of Aura, breaking down the caption into easy to understand figures, the little things, honestly. The blond noodle even had an index page that's constantly expanding and being rewritten.

Not bad for a slacker.

The Arc also had an idea page, filled to the brim of worthless and dead end projects that went nowhere real fast. Like his mismatch quest to form a cube out of Aura. That just wasn't happening, no matter how much willpower and mental focus he threw at the task. Nope! Some goals really did prove impossible with Aura. How Excalibur came to be was partially unknown to him, but he figured that's one of those _better not to know_ things.

Now Jaune rushed sketch an idea he had for a gun, before promptly crossing out the design in haste and frustration.

The sad fact was he knew nothing about gun creation or thermodynamics. Didn't stop him from attempting a new design after another, but they all ended up the same in some shape or form, a blemish in his Aura notebook in both failure and ink.

Throwing his hate into it, Jaune scratched his head, trying for the life of him to unravel this problem. Meanwhile, Nora's sitting behind him, interested in what her Fearless Leader's up to. She couldn't see with his mop of unkempt locks blocking her sight, but she definitely knew he wasn't paying any attention to Professor Boring's lecture. Not like she could blame him, but how come Ren's not on his case for being lazy?

So unfair.

Maybe he's holding his secret—cheating techniques—to how he counted all that dust? Or worse! Recipes for sugar-free pancakes? Maybe her leader will force her darling Ren to make those instead of his perfect, fluffy ones? Revenge for poking him with her trusty fork all those times? No! She wouldn't allow that. She'd show him!

Nora's not going to let her dumb leader beat her so easily. She's—!

"Nora..." Ren whispered, grabbing the top of her head in a commanding move. He forced her attention on the fast moving professor. "You're supposed to be taking notes, not scheming up ways to prank our leader. Start writing or I'm not making you any breakfast tomorrow."

Nora pouted. An empty lie, Ren wouldn't dare let her starve, but his voice still held this edge of slight disappointment. But now he's keeping his attention trained on her, increasing the blood flow in her cheeks.

Gosh darn it! Now her leader made Ren mad at her, too!

...

Pyrrha watched her Fearless Leader skip dinner as he stalked away by himself toward their room, a slight frown adoring his usual happy-go-lucky nature. She wanted to follow. Maybe invite him to come eat with them instead, but there's a slightly angry, tired stomp in his step and she didn't want to intervene. Not again. His body actions spoke of needing some alone time.

She's not clueless. Pyrrha noticed how out of place her leader felt during combat class. And seeing how inadequate he felt today probably felt a lot worse actually coming from Jaune. A lot worse. She couldn't even begin to imagine how he's feeling in the inside. His emotions must be jumbled up together in a tangled up mess.

Just when she thought he was getting better, getting back to his old self, disaster struck without warning. And Jaune had been so excited to fight. She saw it! Her friends and teammates saw it! Even a few other students saw it. The moment he'd been waiting for had been stripped of him before he noticed. Before he could properly grasped and seize the moment.

To be pushed back down after getting up must be so hard. For it to happen twice must be an ever greater challenge. Yet, her leader seemed determined. That much was true. Determined and focused. This setback could only push him further. At least Pyrrha hoped. Really, really hoped. Because this invisible distance he was keeping from his team reminded her too much of the still fresh Cardin memory, and even if Jaune seemed a lot better than before, he was still too far secretive for her taste.

She'd just have to suck it up and keep him on his toes with their training regime. Perhaps throw in some grappling and stronger evasive tactics.

Anything to further his progress and not hinder him. Not again.

...

Lie Ren's not blind.

It's clear on Pyrrha's frown that her thoughts were mixed and scattered, and the perpetrator for this sole act was their leader and his recent secretive motives.

Jaune Arc entered Beacon Academy off being a liar. There were no two ways about it. No matter how much he wanted to, Ren couldn't. Others probably thought that's a noble goal when his dreams was to become a Huntsmen, but in reality, it's almost selfish and problematic. It's not too hard to believe his leader could keep secrets from them, harmful or not. Ren didn't even think his leader knew that keeping secrets could hurt the ones around him. And based off the past behavior of his leader, he's sure Jaune had a tendency to lock himself away from others when something positively negative happened.

It's easy to fall back into old habits without realizing it. The Cardin fiasco was one example and even his lack of skill was another that pushed Jaune to hide again. Two very important factors that happened side-by-side of each other that shut him down. Only this time, Jaune didn't look exhausted or down, but instead seemed to have a positive outlook on the situation. Which only made it harder for Ren to deduct whether his leader was keeping secrets because he felt sadden or for another reason all together.

But what Ren could probably guess accurately on was that something negative affected Jaune, made him question something about himself. No one fell back down onto bad habits from a positive motive. There would be no reason to. No safeguard needed. And that's what confused him. Because when Lie Ren really thought long and hard about it, Jaune Arc was a person prone to self-doubt.

Self-doubt could have such odd effects on a person. From pretending everything was normal with denial, to being consumed by grief and sorrow until the pressure was too much to bear. The possibilities were endless, and Ren figured Jaune's off-chance self-doubt could be channeling in a positive way. And in the end, it's not too hard for the ninja to imagine Jaune hiding, having years of experience watching Nora slip on a various forms of masks throughout their closed past made his emotion reading skills advanced compared to everyone else, but even he's getting mixed signals here.

But would he call him out on it? Would he force Jaune to talk and reveal to them the problems he's facing?

No.

He had his own secrets, and he's not going to force someone to reveal theirs because of boundless curiosity.

Jaune must have his reasons—everyone always did. And even if his leader was hiding something, it seemed like he's trying to make the most of it. Best to let Jaune figure things out on his own accord and not push him, unless absolutely necessary.

Good or bad, it didn't matter.

"C'mon, Ren!" Nora latched onto his arm from behind, smile bright and unwavering. "Our food's not gonna eat itself!"

He peered down at his plate of healthy food that Nora's hates and then hers, tilting his head slightly in a amusing way. "You forgot to get your vegetables... _again_." Nora pretended not to hear that, unlatching herself away from Ren's arm, and sliding over to Pyrrha with a slight bump on the hip.

Ren followed a minute after with a second plate of vegetables for a distraught Nora and half-amused Pyrrha. Pyrrha's half-amusement turned into a stifle giggle as Ren was forced to spoon feed Nora her vegetables, promising for his leader a day out on Vale if Nora behaved herself. How he would manage such a feat was yet to be known, but Pyrrha didn't doubt him.

After all, Lie Ren actually got Nora to eat her vegetables.

...

Alone in their team's room during dinner, Jaune's currently trying to focus the ball of Aura in his palm to shoot forward. But no such luck. The ball of Aura refused to leave his hand, no matter how much he seemed to focus on it. Whatever focus or force he tried to apply simply added nothing to the overgrowing problem. It hadn't taken much to convince the Arc to try and manipulate his Aura into a gun-like weapon. He figured if he could create a sword out of Aura, using the Aura balls as a projectile should be a walk in the park, metaphorically speaking.

How wrong he was.

It's like he'd been flung back to square one all over again!

He'd never noticed until now, but the four balls of Aura in his hands appeared to be the same distance away from his hands, no matter where he moved them. Strange how he'd never noticed these things until he's forced to find solutions around them. Such was the way of life of an Aura manipulator, he supposed.

Damn it.

Giving up on trying to make his orbs of Aura fire out, Jaune mindlessly twirled them around his hands, finding it amusing that this form of control once stumped him, busy thinking about the guns his team used for a reference point.

First, he thought of Pyrrha's weapon and its semi-automatic rifle form. He could picture its form and how she used it. It's definitely a long range weapon with its scope and barrel size, and maybe he could find a way at making his Aura fire that distance. Then Jaune's shaking his head at the notion. He doubted he could hit long range target like the way she could. They'd have to be standing still for such a thing. Other words, that would take a certain level of concentration and skill he knew he didn't posses outright.

Next, he thought about Nora's grenade launcher and promptly stopped there before his mind could derail any further.

No—just no!

Lastly, he pictured Ren's weapon gun form. The stoic man used automatic pistols that were versatile for close to mid-range combat. They're a deadly combination between blades and guns, and easy to use. And quick, too! A better and more optimal weapon for his taste palate.

Hn? Jaune stopped twirling the balls of Aura in his hands, snuffing them out of existence except for one. He stared silently at the ball of Aura, thinking heavily on Ren's weapon type and its pistol shape design. And the more he stalked the idea, the better appealing it got.

"A blade that's also a pistol," Jaune mumbled, thinking about times when he was a kid and using his hands as makeshift guns. Could it really be that simple? Crazy, sure. Simple, well, that's all up to him. He'd already pulled off the impossible once. "Okay! Let's give this a try."

Absorbing his ball of Aura—knowing he needed some form of ammunition—Jaune formed his hand into the child-like gun of the past. His index finger was pointed out with his thumb up, the rest of his fingers were folded into his palm, resembling that childish gun from the youth of many.

Slowly, he gathered his Aura toward the tip of his index finger, watching the ball of white glow brightly away from it. Jaune felt the Aura beginning to condense within the tip. A pair of rings he'd never seen before, circled around the sphere, acting like a belt. It's magnificent and breathtaking and quickly becoming unstable before his very eyes.

Suddenly, Jaune felt his control slipping, something which he hadn't felt for a long time, and tried to stabilize his Aura. It didn't work, and the ball abruptly exploded in his hand, thrusting him back against the wall of his team's room with a great force.

"Ah!" Jaune cried, sliding down onto the floor. There's no pain and he quickly got up, staring at the tip of his finger with confusion and anticipation. "What was that?"

He quickly tried again with the same results as before happening. No matter how hard he tried, or how many times he threw his soul into it, he couldn't stop the sudden loss of control or recoil damage that happened every time he failed. And that's not the only problem. The Aura wasn't coming back to him, not at all. Jaune felt the Aura slip out his body upon the explosion. It's nowhere like the Aura balls or Excalibur whenever he materialized and then willed them away. The Aura for those always came back.

In other words, he could only practice this technique only so much before utterly exhausting himself of his Aura reserves.

Which made perfect sense if he's trying to expel the Aura as ammunition, it just worked against his favor in terms of practice and training. A real bummer, but results required sacrifice. And he's more than willingly to pay the piper if it crafted him to the weapon he wanted.

Trying once more, Jaune aimed at the wall and he could already feel the Aura in his finger tip breaking apart. Instead of taking another explosion to the face, he calmly drained the ball of Aura instead, flickering the power away. This time he felt his Aura come back to him, but it did nothing to soothe his mood.

Flexing his fingers, Jaune glared at his hand. A ball of Aura easily formed in his palm and he willed it away just as fast. He pondered silently over what could've possibly gone wrong. So far, he had zip.

Forming Excalibur, Jaune stared at the Aura blade, tilting it as if the answer was somewhere hidden in its subtle glow. The brightness didn't affect the Arc anymore, possibly due to it being his own Aura, and he swung the sword for good measure, wanting to get in some practice swings to get a feel for his weapon. It felt totally different than a gun, that's for sure. And then it hit him.

The Excalibur's a sword. Not a gun.

Those were two totally different weapons. He knew what a sword was, how to properly wield one, and the mechanics behind it. But Jaune Arc had absolutely no idea on how to properly use a gun. His family never needed the use of such weapons before. So they never saw the need to teach any of their children about guns. And guns weren't exactly as simple as swords. There's more mechanics behind them than simply design and durability.

Finding out the problem, Jaune pinched the bridge of his nose.

He pondered over his next move, moving to stare out the window and at the moonless night. "What to do? What to do?"

Moments later, he willed away Excalibur and sighed at the obvious answer. He needed to learn about how guns work before he could try creating one. Plain and simple. Back to square one indeed.

...

It took Jaune only five minutes at the library to learn that he understood absolutely nothing of what the scrolls were talking about when they tried to explain the mechanisms and thermal power behind a gun. It hurt his head to even recall all those damn confusing words. Seriously! How did Ruby actually enjoy this stuff? It hurt his head to read.

Wait a damn minute! Ruby!

Of course! If anyone could help dumb down the process of gun making for him, it's that adorable reaper.

"Perfect!" Jaune grinned, walking toward Team RWBY's room now. "I'll just ask Ruby to explain this stuff to me! Shouldn't be too much of a problem, I hope."

But as he neared Team RWBY's dorm, he couldn't help but feel he forgot something as he knocked on their door—something very, _very_ important. And the door opened up a second later to reveal a fellow blonde.

"Oh! Hey, Jaune! What brings you here?" That's right, Yang Xiao Long, Ruby's older, stronger, overprotective sister.

Who hated all things corruptible near her precious baby sister, including guys. Especially guys. Which Jaune was. A guy. Holder of the evil Y chromosome. If there's ever a time to play it smooth Jaune, now's the time.

"Hey, Yang!" Jaune greeted with a simple wave, so far, so good. He's as cool as ice. Colder than Weiss even. "Can I speak to Ruby?"

Damn it!

Full baby sister alert signals went off in Yang's head, alerting to the chance of a contamination from the male species. It may be a minor threat, but a threat was a threat, and her Uncle Qrow and dad did warn her to watch over Ruby. Even Vomit Boy had potential to corrupt her baby sis. However little it may be.

"Why, Vomit Boy?" Even though Yang's grinning, Jaune could clearly see the fire burning within her eyes, and her the undertone underneath her teasing voice, and wisely decided to rephrase the question.

"I was wondering if she could explain to me how a gun works? I was thinking of making one for—!"

Before Jaune could even finish the question, Ruby appeared out of thin air in a wisp of rose petals, already within his personal space, clutching onto the threads of his hoodie in obvious joy. There's a certain spark in her eyes as she impatiently tugged his sweater. "You're making a gun!?"

Jaune slowly tried to push Ruby away with no luck. She's stubbornly holding on. Instead, he slowly answered her question with his voice only slightly cracking. "... Yes?"

"Can I help you build it?! Please! Please! Oh please say yes! Say yes!"

Looking between Ruby and Yang, Jaune sighed miserably. This was going to hurt _him_ a lot more than it's going to hurt her. Even if he knew Yang wouldn't _really_ do anything to him, not unless they're in combat class, he knew hurting her sister's feeling would in fact activate _momma bear's going to tear Jaune_ apart mode. She'd probably scare him with a simple warning, but that wouldn't make it any less intimidating.

Bracing himself, he summoned all his courage. It's nowhere near enough. "No."

Time passed slowly and Ruby eventually went from pure unrestrained happiness to withering depression. Yang's immediately on him when Ruby began to whimper a little with her threat levels for Jaune going from minor to medium. She would be impressed if she wasn't so darn angry right now. Maybe her father was right? Perhaps she did have anger problems?

Didn't really matter right now.

"Look! Just let me explain!" Jaune cried out with Yang hands around his shoulders. His arms were out in total surrendering fashion with his nervous smile all he had as a weapon.

"You got ten seconds to explain!" Yang warned with a sickly sweet smile. _Whimper_! "You got five seconds to explain!"

"I just want to know how to make a gun!" Jaune answered, sweating a little. He needed to keep his secret intact. "But I don't want anyone to help me because it wouldn't be fair! Everyone else made their own by themselves. I want too as well. I felt useless today during Professor Goodwitch's class... I just need to know the basics of making one. That's it!"

Yang didn't release her grip on Jaune, but she didn't increase it either. That had to count for something. It's all he had at the moment. Well, that and his amazing smile and winning personality. But he'd rather not go there right now.

Holding Jaune's neck, Yang looked over to Ruby. "Ruby? It's your call."

Ruby toughened up in an adorable way and glared at Jaune. She could see he's being serious behind his goofy grin, and completely understood what he's saying. Wanting to create ones own weapon was something everyone should do by themselves. He's only asking for help on the basics on guns, that's all. As a budding-learning weapon master, Ruby couldn't let his sudden passion for gun making die by her sister's powerful and unforgiving hands.

No matter how mad she still was at the blond dork or how tempting the offer sounded. Well, maybe a little? No! No! Bad Ruby!

Hurting friends was wrong!

"Let him go, Yang." Ruby finally answered, still a little sad.

Yang did, but not before giving Jaune a _I'm watching you_ look and disappearing back into their dorm room. This left the two leaders alone outside the hall. It's uncomfortably quiet in the hall and neither of them spoke a word for a moment, socially awkward and all. Finally, though, Ruby surprisingly broke the silence first, brave in the face of awkwardness.

"So..." she stretched, rocking back and forth on the soles of her boots. "Why didn't you just ask your team to explain to you on how to make a gun?"

Jaune chose his next words carefully, deliberating sugary his personality. "I want to keep it a secret to surprise them... and if I was going to ask anyone for help; it's going to be Remnant's number one weapons master."

"Aw! You're trying to butter me up." Ruby mocked, hands to chest.

Jaune tilted his head, leaning a little closer to her. "Is it working?"

Ruby tried to hide her smile, playing with the hem of her combat skirt instead. "Maybe."

Grinning now, Jaune paused in his buttering to lock eyes onto Team RWBY's door. Fear still gripped his heart. "Any reason Yang was being so harsh?"

Ruby pouted, arms now crossed. "She's always like that whenever some _guy_ wants to hang around me. Plus, she's kind of protective. It happened all the time at Signal." Ruby laughed. "Don't worry, she wasn't really going to hurt you... maybe." That did little to nothing to settle Jaune's nerves. "But you're Jaune, so you should be fine."

Ignoring the condemnation, he peered toward Team RWBY's door and pictured how easy it would be for Yang to simply reach him with his team's dorm right across from his theirs. "I don't feel any safer at all."

"You also threw up on her shoes..." she added as an afterthought. "Those were new boots. She's probably still a _tiny_ bit mad at you for that."

He deadpanned, gloom settling over his weak smile. "She hasn't forgiven me yet for that?"

" _New_ boots, Jaune!"

"Okay, okay, that's fair," Jaune relented, grinning now at the memory of his seven sisters and when it came to new clothing. He then tucked his hands into his pockets, being confident again. "So, can you help me, Rubes? I just need to know the how and why behind guns. Something I'm pretty sure you know all about!"

Ruby acted like the choice required real brainpower to consider, before nodding in a vigorous speed. "Okay! How about we get started on how a gun shoots its bullets. Basically, you apply pressure behind a projectile..." One long explanation later. "And that should do it!" She finished the basic lesson of Weaponolgy one-o'-one, smile innocent. "Any questions?"

Jaune laughed awkwardly, cocking his head to the side, pretending he actually understood all of that, when in reality he only paid attention to the utmost important part of the gun's dynamics when it came to handguns. Mainly, the five crucial points on how a revolver fired and aimed.

The trigger, hammer, chamber, barrel, and handle were all the notes he took immediate notice to, storing away their functions for later writing and testing. There was also the power behind the weapon, the force and acting release mechanism, but he's more than sure his willpower attributed to dissolve those issues. Other than that, the information he searched for was attained.

"Yea, I got it!" Glad to have finally got the information he wanted, Jaune quickly hugged the hooded girl in a surprise sneak-hug, grinning like a complete fool. "Thanks, Rubes!"

Jaune walked back into his room, not noticing the way Ruby's cheeks had flared up. The girl tried to calm herself down, not really understanding why her heart was racing. She even felt a little warmer. Maybe she was getting sick? Yea, that made perfect sense. A little sleep and bed rest should eliminate this pesky problem.

Deciding that bed was now a top priority, Ruby opened the door to her team's room, still a little flushed. When she pulled the door away, Yang, and surprisingly Weiss, both fell down from the sudden loss of the door, becoming a tangle of limbs upon the dirty hallway carpet.

"Yang... Weiss?" Ruby tilted her head in total confusion. "What are you two doing?"

...

Luckily, when Jaune entered his team's room, his teammates weren't there to intrude in his training. But judging off the time, they'd be here soon. He might only have one chance to do this tonight, so he must hurry. Remembering what Ruby taught him, Jaune turned his hand back into the childlike gun, except he didn't immediately charge any Aura into it. Not yet.

"Alright! First things first, the trigger." Jaune recounted, staring at his hand. His own force of will would acted as the trigger, so he could scratch that one off the list. "Second, the hammer!" Yet, another factor his will acted upon, becoming said trigger. But Aura still needed to build up somewhere, or else he's lacking ammunition.

Thinking hard about this, Jaune's eyes rested upon his thumb and he glared over it. It wasn't really serving any real purpose, so he shifted it down within his palm and concentrated some Aura into it. He could feel the buildup of Aura centering there almost instantly, flowing as easily as water.

"That covers the hammer and next should be the chamber?" Since the chamber held the ammunition, Jaune figured that basically meant him, but stopped at the idea. "Hn? This might be a problem."

Having to shoot and concentrate on forcing the Aura through his hand did not sound like a good idea, not in the long run or in the heat of battle. If only he could store some Aura elsewhere where it would be easily accessible, then it'd be a better alternative? Better than constantly streaming Aura from his body and into his hand.

Looking down at his hand, Jaune took notice that his entire palm could probably store two to three Aura spheres at once. Whether or not he could force the Aura to be stored inside was all up to him and his level of control. But to call him confident would be an understatement.

Concentrating, he formed two Aura balls in his other hand and tried to force them within his palm. The process was a new one, demanding control he'd given no practice to. Draining his Aura away was one thing, storing it in a pocket space within his palm was another thing entirely. Not only that, but he had to take into account of storage and shape manipulation, both of which turn out to be a nightmare all its own. But he's determined, breaking through the barrier standing before him with relentless passion.

The spheres finally broke apart in his hand, turning into little bits of Aura that centered beneath his skin. When it's all said and done, Jaune felt them sleeping within his hand, idly resting there without concern. Truthfully, they barely fit inside his hand, almost pulsating with life. But it's practically easy to manipulate and make sure they stay there once he figured out all the ins and outs of the Aura manipulation process. And for now, his limit's two.

Could he overcome that wall and increase those numbers? Only time would tell.

"Great! I got the chamber down!" Jaune laughed, concentrating on the two Aura balls hidden within his handgun. "Next is the barrel!" Index finger out! "Well, got that covered! And finally the handle!" Which meant his middle, ring, and little finger. "Perfect!"

Ready to test out his Aura gun, Jaune aimed at the wall near the window, grinning like a blind fool. The results were immediate and he felt an Aura ball in his hand travel pass his thumb and through his index finger, but then it stopped suddenly outside his index finger, becoming unstable very fast.

"Not again!"

Jaune immediately began to drain away his Aura and relaxed his hand as the danger died down. He breathed a sigh of relief as the ball of Aura was halfway gone, glad to avoid another explosion to the face. But Jaune's not paying enough attention to his hand, his middle finger was the first to loosen up and connect with his index finger by a force of movement, creating a chain of reactions that would forever shape him into the Huntsmen he dreamed to be.

He'd never forget the results of what happened next.

The unstable ball of Aura suddenly sharpened and condensed into a tighter size with two glowing rings circling around it, before it fired straight forward and through the wall of Team JNPR's room, outside into the moonless night sky.

"What the hell!"

Jaune, of course, didn't believe it and looked down at his hand. Fortunate smiled down upon him, having frozen his movements, along with his hand, in a state of cold suspension of fear. Upon observing, Jaune discovered his index and middle finger still touching with the rest of the others still locked in place. None of it made any sense to him.

Ignoring the smoldering hole in his team's wall for time being, Jaune studied his hand, trying for the life of him to figure out what just happened. Being a man of action, he settled to test this new state of hand-formation outside the window this time, and repeated the process with critical resolve.

Staring off at the moonless night, Jaune focused his second ball of Aura through his palm, copying the movements in acute precision. He felt it travel again to his index finger, except this time the ball of Aura formed between his index and middle finger, condensing down into a smaller ball of Aura with two rings circling it, like a belt of dust particles.

This time in control, Jaune decided not fire, instead more keen on studying the subtle difference with Aura hungry eyes. He moved his handgun closer, unafraid of his Aura's power, even with the burning hole in the wall to demonstrate its destructive force and blinding speed.

Tilting the gun, he scratched the side of his head, musing over the little things. "Doesn't seem like much changed, well, except for my middle finger, but why?"

Aiming at the endless sky, Jaune narrowed his eyes as he fired his Aura ball straight out, focused solely on watching it soared through the air with a tail of white sparkles of dust following it like a shooting star.

Losing sight of it, he idly wondered just how far it's destined to go.

Using his other hand, that still contained two Aura balls stored within it, Jaune aimed for the forest outside of Beacon, and took aim at a nearby enormous tree very close to Beacon, but still just out of distance of prying eyes. He didn't want another Cardin problem to fall into his lap. He aimed his hand a little above the tree, taking into account of gravity and wind like Ruby said to the best of his mediocre skills. But when he fired the ball of Aura, it soared straight above the tree with the trail of fading white indicating its direction, hitting the exact same spot he had been aiming at originally from edge of his thumb, instead of falling under the effects of various variables he haphazardly took into account for.

That's strange?

Interested in this new development, this time he actually aimed as close as possible to the tree, eliminating range and gravity out the equation. Upon firing, he's delighted and surprised to find the ball of Aura soaring through the air, wind and gravity resistance nonexistent, hitting the tree dead center from where he aimed, if not off to the side from his lackluster aiming. The bright explosion that followed after turned out to be just a delightful bonus.

Leaning out the window, Jaune blinked in fascination. "That's weird? It doesn't seem like Aura is at all affected by gravity or the wind? That's good to know."

Of course he could be dead wrong. But completely forgetting about that for the moment, Jaune focused back on his hand, wondering why his middle finger was needed to properly fire. He hadn't done anything different this time. Just point and fire.

"Let's see." Turning his hand back into a gun with only his index finger, Jaune aimed at the wall, not intending to fire, just observe. He added his middle finger and took account of the added weight he felt. "Could that have something to do with it?"

Jaune sighed, yawning out in tiredness. Honestly, it felt like he's thinking much too hard on this. He'd got the damn Aura gun to work, that should be more than enough to satisfy his goal. Except it's not. Not remotely close.

Call him insane. Make fun of him. It made zero difference. He only wanted to know why it fired with only both fingers and not one before he started jumping up for joy. Maybe this was how Ruby felt whenever she wondered how other people's weapons worked? Perhaps it's just his Aura complexity that grabbed him and demanded answers to the questions he simply couldn't comprehend with a limited Aura palette.

He tried to recall some of the things Ruby told him. The five parts of a revolver and whatever else she mentioned, but for the darn life of him, nothing remotely rings a bell. Not one single thing.

Monty Oum, help him!

Shaking his head in irritation, Jaune leaned out the window on both his arms, trying to locate his thoughts in the endless horizon. Only problem, he was having a hard time doing so while constantly having to blow away stray strands of his hair getting stuck in his line of sight due to the harsh winds.

They wouldn't budge.

Shaking his head again, the hairs remained in place, right on his line of sight—or as Ruby had stubbornly put it—right between his crosshairs. Funny, he didn't think his Aura gun had crosshairs—?

Crosshairs! Aiming! Line of sight! That's it!

Jaune stood up quickly, hoping to test out his theory, only to hit his head on the window's top half. Silently, he cursed his luck before the pain faded away. "Thank you, Aura!"

Back to his sudden realization! Jaune Arc reformed his hand back into a handgun, staring intently at his index finger, finally putting the pieces of the puzzle together. His index finger wasn't the barrel, it was the crosshairs! The aiming! It was his middle finger that was the barrel for the Aura gun! No wonder it always blew up in his face! The Aura never had anywhere to fire out.

"Finally!" Jaune yelled, jumping into the air. "It all makes sense now! This is—!"

 _Click_!

Pausing his crazy rant, Team JNPR's leader turned around to see his fellow teammates enter the room. Normally, they wouldn't pay too much attention to Jaune when the day was close to ending, hoping to enter dreamland, but the hole in the wall forced all their attention and stunned them to muted silence. Even the ever talkative Nora Valkyrie failed to make a comment, just lost.

Simply, utterly lost.

Their eyes shifted back to Jaune and the hole a few times with no one saying a single word, until finally Nora was the first to break the tension in the room, folding her arms in glum and slight annoyance. Mostly, it's directed at Ren.

"Oh! I see! Our Fearless Leader can make a hole in the wall anytime he wants. But when I do it, it's a problem?"

Ren had nothing to add to that, figuring Nora was indeed right. He calmly retreated with a _boop_ to her nose, using her stunned silence to slide behind Pyrrha, unaffected by her traitorous gawking. Speaking of said champion, she's resolved to cracking the mystery.

"Jaune?" Pyrrha walked over to the now cooled hole, grabbing bits of the drywall with her fingers. " _Why_ is there a hole in our wall?"

"Ah!" Jaune searched for an excuse, playing it cool in the face of accusation. "... I tripped over one of Nora's grenade canisters, while holding Crocea Mors, and my sword went right through the wall? My bad."

 _Smooth_.

Later, Jaune Arc didn't know what hurt more? His Arc pride for destroying part of his team's room or the fact that they actually believed him and thought he was just that clumsy. Couldn't they have at least shown bits of doubt?

...

Waking up to a bright sunny day, Jaune's surprised to find his team not in the room and the hole covered with a poster, a poster he's certain belonged to one Nora Valkyrie. Who else would own a poster that had a caption titled _Sloth King_ with its slow minions bowing down to it? _Who_ else could even find a poster like that and bother buying it?

Ironically enough, it really tied the room together. He didn't understand why, but it just did.

Checking the time, he found he had slept way later than usual. That's strange? Jaune didn't remember feeling tired that much yesterday? A few _yawns_ and _sighs_ here and there, sure, but exhausted didn't even cross his mind. Even stranger, he found it odd that the girls beat him up. Ren's a different case, but the girls were notorious heavy sleepers, like Team RWBY. If they could sleep the day away, they most definitely would.

Glaring at the poster where a hole was supposed to be, memories of last night came rushing back and it all slowly began making sense. He must've drained the heck out of his Aura reserves last time with his failed and successful Aura experiments, completely exhausting him to a state of weakness? Meaning, he needed work on his Aura reserves.

Could prove problematic in the future.

Glad that there's no classes on Saturday; Jaune got dressed and headed for the Mess Hall for breakfast. But he paused before leaving the room, and went to stare out window to see where he fired that ball of Aura last night. He's contemplating whether or not to skip breakfast and proceed check it out the damage. And seeing as there were only a few students outside so far, Jaune settled on running to inspect the tree. Fewer witnesses and whatnot to notice him leaving Beacon.

Besides, he could always steal some of Ren's health bars. Like hiding them under his bed was going to stop him from taking some. It's almost as funny as Ren's orange scented shampoo that he tried to hide. Of course Jaune wouldn't call him out on it.

He used the stuff, too.

...

Reaching the edge of the forest, Jaune found the tree easily with a interesting crater behind it, dirt and gravel scattered around the forest floor. Checking the damage, he rubbed his hand on the oak, mentally noting things to add into his Aura notebook, like the small sense of heat he felt on the edge of hole, even hours after he fired his weapon. Strange how he found no scorch marks to accommodate for such heat.

Jaune grinned, confidence rising. "Whoa! The Aura ball must've gone straight through the tree and smashed against the dirt. This is so awesome!"

It really was.

Wishing to test out his Aura gun again, Jaune formed his hand in the correct form and aimed at a tree next to him. He charged and then took aim, firing the ball of Aura straight through the oak. The sight was amazing and watching the ball of Aura cut through tree after tree, until he lost sight of it, truly formed a smile on his face. Of course, as he watched the Aura ball pass through each tree like Crocea Mors cutting through butter, he couldn't help but wonder why it stopped short on the ground.

Illogically, he assumed the ball of Aura would've passed right through the dirt. Seemed like the sound thing to happen after watching the other mass of Aura pass through the poor trees. Not to say he's disappointed, just oddly curious, to the point he's repeating the experiment in a quest to learn and discover without a moment's rest.

Aiming another shot at the ground beneath his feet, the Aura ball, upon collision, exploded in an explosion of power and forced him back a few feet. Dirt flied everywhere and he's force to shield his eyes from the whitening explosion. When everything's said and done, there's a smoldering crater left behind from the explosion and some remnants of ash around the rim of the crater, an insignia left behind that showed the heat and destructive power of Aura.

Pausing, Jaune blinked and tilted his head questionably. "Okay? So it can go through trees just fine, but not through dirt? That's just plain weird."

Weird or not, it's just another puzzle to solve!

Charging up his hand yet again, Jaune looked around, wanting to test his power on another substance, and eventually aimed at an enormous boulder far off to his side. But just as he was about to fire, a Ursa Minor and Ursa Major jump out from behind the boulder, and lunged straight at the stationary knight.

"What the?!"

Running off pure instinct, Jaune unknowingly fired his Aura gun right through Ursa Minor face, stumbling a few feet back from not properly footing himself. He watched as the ball of Aura cleaved Grimm and crashed upon the boulder behind it. The bear Grimm fell down, dead before even hitting the floor, given a background of boulder destruction that drained the remnants of Aura from his handgun's ammunition.

Narrowing his eyes, Jaune wanted to know why his Aura sphere failed to pass through the boulder, but he had bigger fish to worry about. Like the Ursa Major quickly closing in!

Jaune side-dodged a claw meant to cleave him in two, barrel rolling on the floor to create some distance. "Honestly! Where the hell are you all coming from?"

He's mad to say the least. How did he not see those things sneaking up on him? It happening once was one thing, but twice? That's just wrong on some many levels. Things were as big as his team's room. First the Cardin fiasco and now this? Ursai sure loved blond, goofy knights. What? Did they find him tasty. Was he really a blond noodle like every person claimed him to be? Did bears like noodles?

It's a damn conspiracy! A conspiracy!

Jumping back from a large claw about to crush his body, Jaune landed a few feet away as the Ursa Major pulled its paw out from the floor, leaving a menacingly looking crater behind. The Grimm then growled at him, getting onto all fours and preparing to rush toward the stunned knight, drawing its claws on the dirt.

Adrenaline finally kicking in, Jaune reacted to the situation and switched into a defensive stance, too determined to live to be scared of the growling beast. Besides, he'd beaten two already, why not add another to his count? Three's the charm, at least he hoped that's how the saying went.

Heart pounding hard in his ears, beat strong in his chest, and blood warm with anticipation, there's a small trickle of sweat forming on his arms as he reflexively connected his hands together and quietly concentrated on his Aura to connect and stabilize.

Smirking, Jaune glared playfully at the Grimm. "Well, I did want to use Excalibur on a Grimm yesterday. And I can't see a better opportunity than now. And really, you're not leaving me with a lot of choice. It's your own fault."

Roaring, the Ursa Major lunged forward at a frightening speed, closing the distance between them in no time. Jaune merely breathed in a breath of caution, concentrating his Aura to form Excalibur. The white light was brighter than ever before, shaping nicely between his fingers, and only one single thought invaded his mind throughout the whole earth-shattering ordeal.

 _I so need a cool catchphrase!_

Blinded by the sudden bright light, the Ursa Major missed its claw swipe and fell forward from the wasted momentum. Seconds later, a searing white-hot pain was running up its arm, hurting the Ursa Major, causing it to blindly swipe toward the direction from where the pain deviated from. It hit nothing but air and the pain was returned from a nasty slash on its side abdominal area.

The Grimm cried out in pain and jumped back to get a better look at who or _what_ attacked it. Luckily for it, the earlier bright light had lessened to the point it wasn't so blinding anymore. Whatever had attacked it was standing no less than a few yards away from it with a glowing object in their hand.

"Wow? That looks like it really hurts?" Jaune whistled.

He knew he's being a tad arrogant about the whole ordeal, he knew that very well, but seeing and feeling how easy it was to cut through the Grimm's hard skin, and knowing he'd already brought down a fellow Ursa Major before, gave him one hell of a confidence boost.

Pointing the Aura blade at the monster, Jaune swung it for good measure. "You know, this is the first time I've ever used the Excalibur on something other than a tree before. Thanks for volunteering."

Growling at the lazy taunt, the Grimm pushed back the pain for now and charged at Jaune yet again, following its instincts to avoid that stick of light in its prey's hand.

Losing his cool stature, Jaune focused his Aura throughout his entire body and held Excalibur up to his chest in a defensive stance that Pyrrha drilled endlessly into him. He felt the muscles in his body adjust properly, expanding to his finely tuned Aura control and rush of adrenaline and instincts. The Aura then settled close to his skin in a protective layer of armor.

Looked like all that Aura practice and training with Pyrrha was finally going to pay off.

Using his free hand, Jaune instinctively created an Aura ball and forced it within his palm while he dodged to the side from the charging Grimm. The added boost from his Aura really did make a difference in a fight, and he tried to aim another slash for the side of the Ursa Major's head, only missing by a hair in the process.

The Grimm then countered with its sharp claws and swiped down onto Jaune, who lifted up Excalibur to intercept its claws. The Aura blade didn't bend or break beneath the sheer power of the attack, but the force was tremendous as his knees buckled under the increasing weight of the Grimm's arm. Even the earth bent to the Grimm's sheer will.

Using the advantage of its weight, the Ursa Major swiped its other arm toward Jaune, who was struggling against its claw, attempting to claw the human's gut out. Stuck, Jaune instinctively raised his free hand and formed his Aura gun, firing at the Grimm's arm in point-blank range with the stored Aura ball.

It went right through the Grimm's arm, who howled in immediate pain from the searing burn, before releasing Jaune from underneath its hold. Not letting the chance of freedom go, Jaune moved forward and delivered a cut that ran a deep gash across the Grimm's stomach. He then attempted to aim for its legs, but the Grimm, fighting off the pain, used its jaws to grab hold onto Jaune's arm before he could finish the move.

"Arg!" Jaune gritted his teeth, feeling the Grimm's teeth sinking into his arm. He needed to end this fight quick!

Forming another Aura ball with his free hand, Jaune prepared to shoot the Grimm in the head, but the Grimm tugged on Jaune's arm, forcing the sphere of Aura to crash against the Ursa Major's body instead. And it's moments like these that made Jaune Arc really wonder what he'd truly accomplished.

If he were to describe the feeling of holding a ball of Aura in his hand for the first time—Jaune would describe, it in his own personal words, as holding a ball of pure unimaginable wonder. After all, only something totally unimaginable could explain the wondrous spectacle happening right in front of his very eyes.

Feeling the ball of Aura in his hand connect with the Grimm's body, Jaune felt his Aura literally rip apart the Ursa Major in a show of frenzy and power, before launching the Grimm across the battleground of their fight. Dust covered the area upon the Grimm crashing against several trees, leaving a trail of destruction in its wake.

Effectively, the battle ended in the Arc's favor.

Speechless at the amazing display of power, Jaune didn't notice that his arm was relatively fine from the Grimm bite, with only his sweater's threads taking any real damage; he's still waiting for the Grimm to get back up, but soon realized that it's down for good, turning into a heavy mist of ash in the distance.

Laughing, he wiped his forehead in relief.

"Whoa! That was crazy! I won? I actually won!" Jaune sighed tiredly, willing away Excalibur and breathing heavily from the _Grimm_ encounter. His adrenaline was starting to die down and he took a slow step back, checking his surroundings before making a hasty retreat back to Beacon. "I can celebrate later. I better get out of here before anymore Grimm show up."

It's the first time he'd seen a Grimm near the edge of the forest—very less two—since he'd started training there, and Jaune's not too keen at seeing another one anytime soon. Knowing his luck, more might come for him, especially Ursai and their love for blond noodles, an outcome he preferred to avoid at all cost.

He could figure out this Aura thing later.

...

When Jaune returned for breakfast, he found his team sitting with Team RWBY, enjoying each other's company. He could also see Nora devouring pancakes at an unnatural speed—guess with the bet ending, she's making up for lost time—and Ren's warning her to slow down before she choked. In the end, she choked anyways, proving Ren's warnings useless. Didn't stop her from attacking the defenseless morsels a second time.

Needing to keep his secret a secret for a greater effect during Professor Goodwitch's class, and bragging rights, he planned not to reveal the Grimm encounter. No matter how awesome it was. At least not yet. They probably wouldn't even believe him if he did tell them, except for Nora, but that still meant little. She'd just take over the story and throw her own spin into it. So he couldn't reveal to them the deadly battle he fought only moments ago.

Selfish? Maybe! But Jaune Arc wanted to prove to everyone he belonged at Beacon Academy. Proving he had the skills to be welcomed with the results of his Aura training and not just the efforts from others. Maybe even live up to his family's name in the process? So a little secrecy never hurt anyone.

Grabbing a quick breakfast from the selection, Jaune headed over to his team, ready to talk and waste the day away with his friends, when out of nowhere, Ozpin's voice was heard throughout the entire Mess Hall.

"Hello, fellow students of Beacon." Ozpin smiled, sipping some of his coffee as he entered the Mess Hall. Every set of eyes was on the Headmaster as he hummed to himself in a delightful tone with Professor Goodwitch pinching the bridge of her nose in slight annoyance.

"Ozpin, don't you have something to tell the students?" she reminded him, pushing up her glasses.

"Oh!" Oz jumped, sipping ever more of his delicious coffee. She's starting to wonder if he did that on purpose. "Thank you for reminding me, Glynda. Students, may I please have your attention?"

Looking across the Mess Hall, Ozpin stomped his cane down one time on the floor; and the echoing thud shook all the nerves of the students there. He then smiled a truly innocent smile at each and every one of them.

Not good.

"The Vytal Festival will soon be upon us."

* * *

 **Author Notes:** Edited - **11/05/2017**


	3. Smoke

**Disclaimer:** I own nothing of RWBY.

* * *

 **Smoke**

 **By: Imyoshi**

In all fairness, Jaune Arc had never heard of the Vytal Festival.

So hearing the sudden excitement of chattering going on in the Mess Hall kind of threw him off edge.

Something told him he should know what the Vytal Festival was.

Especially with the way his friend's faces all harbored a different form of expression toward the sudden news—but, nevertheless, all together retaining a slight borderline form of anticipation and excitement.

"As you all know..." Ozpin's voice continued, quite pleased with his student's sudden morale boost. "The Vytal Festival serves as a celebration and beacon of peace between all the kingdoms. A time to study and unite all our cultures and diversities with other kingdoms of Remnant and strengthen bonds between Huntsmen. And this year it is the Kingdom of Vale's turn to host the Vytal Festival."

Jaune didn't know that.

"Now." Ozpin smiled, sipping more of his infinite coffee. His calm eyes traveled across the entire the room in a humorless game, eventually settling on closing them instead. "You are all probably wondering about the Vytal Festival tournament?"

 _Nope_! Jaune thought.

Everyone else, on the other hand, leaned forward on their tables, their attention all toward their Headmaster. They needed to know which teams had been chosen—now! Before a riot, or _worse_ , a food fight broke out!

Whoa?! As of that second, Jaune couldn't help but feel alone again at Beacon. Everyone but _him_ seemed super excited for this Vytal Festival Tournament thing? He's not totally sure what to make of that. And even less whether or not that it posed as a good thing.

Ozpin hummed in delight and nodded toward Glynda to finish up. She took a few steps forward and quickly fixed her glasses, taking a small comfort at all the student's slight fear of her. Beacon was a school for Huntsmen, not civilians. Fear kept them alive. Overconfidence could slaughter a man in an infinite way.

Still, a smile or two her way would be much appreciated—unless it's from Ozpin. That didn't count. That never counted.

"As of now..." she trailed, ignoring Ozpin's little random laugh. "Six teams will be chosen from Beacon to participate in the Vytal Festival Tournament to compete against other teams. The teams will be chosen based off a three point system." Why couldn't students be this excited for class? "First is based on merit and skill. Have enough recommendations from the professors and your team can fight in the tournament."

Some teams looked between each other but didn't say anything. The Mess Hall had become deathly quiet.

"Second!" Glynda continued, fingers up. "Is based off a team that the Headmaster will personally choose himself. That team will be representing Beacon in the upcoming tournament."

This time even more teams looked between each other in obvious curiosity. Who would the Headmaster choose personally? Who's qualified enough to represent Beacon? So many questions! So little answers! Damn it! At this rate, a food fight really _was_ going to break out!

"And finally..." Glynda hurried, having work to get back to. "The final way a team can be chosen to participate is a vote from the citizens of Remnant. As we speak, a poll has been sent to the people to choose their final team. To be fair, this is entirely based off popularity so it's anyone's guess for which team will be chosen."

This time the talks burst forward with everyone eagerly guessing who would be the team the people of Vale would choose to fight in the tournament. No one had any real idea, only a few names here and there.

Glynda huffed at the loud noise, deciding to leave. "The team announcements will be held tomorrow during a special assembly. I don't care if it's Sunday, don't be late."

Laughing a little inside, Ozpin spun in place and began walking out as well. He waved to his students in a lazy fashion. "Please, enjoy the rest of your evening. But do get some early sleep tonight. You wouldn't want to miss the ceremony."

He loved this job almost as much as he loved coffee.

Gone, the students returned to their normal, if not slightly chipper mood. Their talks now consisted on whom and which teams were going to represent Beacon and how awesome the Vytal Festival was going to be. Nobody could remain silent—except Jaune Arc.

Truth be told, he didn't know how to feel about the Vytal Festival. It sounded pretty amazing in his opinion. And he would love to see some fights between teams from different kingdoms. Maybe this would be pretty awesome like everyone around him kept saying? Everyone around him seemed to agree. Then again, he knew next to nothing about it. For all he knew it's nothing special and just a footnote in what he called his life.

Eyeing his breakfast, Jaune settled on not to worry about it. He's hungry and could worry about it later. It's not like he's planning to nominate his team for the Vytal Festival Tournament. That would be just plain crazy and suicidal. That's more of Nora's department. And perfectly fitting for him, she's far too lazy to do paperwork. Forget about Ren doing it.

Walking over to his friends, Jaune could clearly see the excitement in most of their eyes. Blake wasn't so much as smiling as instead reading a book or trying to he guessed. Her lips were pursed in a thin line. Weiss, on the other hand, was practically grinning a Ruby level grin. She even almost laughed at a joke Yang made. A joke from Yang Xiao Long! It's almost scary.

No? Wait! Scratch that. It was scary.

Someone's messing with the natural order.

Sitting beside Ren, Jaune planned to avoid conversation to instead settle his starving stomach. That fight with the Ursa Major must've taken a lot more out of him than he thought. Or maybe Ren's health bars weren't that really filling? Made sense why they tasted so bad. Kind of smeared away the illusion of food when he pondered about it. Either way, he's more hungry than usual and no one's coming to the aid of his poor breakfast. That'd teach his breakfast not to look so appetizing.

 _Munch_!

Jaune regretted nothing. Not even the tiny sounds he made up when he chewed away at the defenseless morsels that were named _bacon_ and _eggs_. Somewhere along the line of chewing Captain Toast, Jaune Arc wondered if Nora's been rubbing off on him a little too much. _Munch_! _Munch_! Nope! He didn't see it.

He's halfway finished with his plate of eggs, bacon, and toast when Ren tapped his Fearless Leader on the shoulder. It took Jaune a moment to register that Ren had physically tapped him and it wasn't Nora jabbing him with her fork again.

Damn Nora.

"Jaune?" Ren stared and subtly pointed at Jaune's _right_ arm. More precisely at his torn sweater sleeve. "What happened to your arm?"

A forkful of eggs was slowly lowered as Jaune tilted his arm to see the damage. There's a quick surprise look of fear in his eyes before he quickly hid it, settling to look foolish instead. Ren noticed anyways—always being the one to noticed lies—but silently waited for his cryptic leader to talk. This ought to be good.

His leader quickly stared around the table and was happy to find that the females of both teams were still enthralled with the Vytal Festival topic, especially Weiss, and didn't hear Ren's question. He settled on taking a quick bite of his eggs, giving him both food and time to come up with an excuse. Any excuse.

Couldn't very well just tell Ren that he just killed a few Ursai less than hour ago and ruin the surprise, could he? Or even tell him that the cut probably came from said fight. Nope! That would lead to too many questions. Questions he preferred to be answered tomorrow.

Looking around the table, Jaune stopped to stare at how Blake's bow twitched in a obvious discomfort, bringing the question to his mind to how it's moving. Then his thoughts settled on a random white lie—a lie so crazy and idiotic that it would never work in his lifetime or the next, and was doom to fail on the spot.

"A dog tore my sweater sleeve." Jaune answered casually, not noticing how Team RWBY suddenly got a little quieter.

"A dog?" Ren questioned, brow raised. "Really?"

"Yup! It was this..." Jaune then looked between each member of Team RWBY to give a random accurate description of said imaginary dog. He looked at Blake's color scheme. "Black and white dog." Then he looked at Ruby's adorableness. "It was short like a puppy." Jaune stared at the unnaturally happy Weiss. "The dog loved to drool." And finally Yang. "And loved to roughhouse."

"A dog?" Ren repeated, voice a tad condescending. "You're telling me that a dog attacked you and made that tear in your sweater—?"

"My favorite sweater, I might add! My sister made it for me."

"Okay... your favorite sweater." Ren sighed, agreeing with him. Wait? No! That's not right at all! He totally saw through his leader's white lie, and normally he wouldn't budge, but it appeared that his leader's hurt, so this time he's asking out of concern. "Jaune? What really—?"

"I'm sorry!" Ruby suddenly latched onto Jaune's arm by her Semblance. Her eyes glistened with tears ready to fall at any minute. "I didn't know that Zwei could get out of our room! I'm so sorry! It's my fault Zwei ruined your favorite sweater! Your sisters must've worked so hard on it!"

If anyone knew the kindness of a sister, it was Ruby Rose. Sometimes, sometimes they're all someone had. And sometimes they loved to embarrass their younger sister by hugging them too tightly in public. It's a love-hate relationship.

Wide eyed, Jaune stared down at Ruby clinging to his left arm, almost to the point of bursting with unused tears. He then slowly glared at the rest of the table, watching how the rest of Team RWBY whistled as nonchalantly as possible in every other direction but his. Although, he could spot Yang giving him the sideways glare for possibly making Ruby almost cry, again. Even his team was unnaturally quiet to the sudden sadden Ruby.

Finally, he stared back down at Ruby and everything just fits into place like a forgotten puzzle.

No! There's no way! That's impossible!

"Wait?" Jaune carefully paused, tempting Lady Luck even more. "You're telling _me_ that, that was _your_ dog that ripped my sweater and not some random stray?"

Ruby tightened her hold on his left arm, nodding an adorable pout. Honestly, without even trying, she's making him feel guilty, and he's starting to lose feeling in his left arm, too! Jaune better stop while he's ahead.

Remembering Yang's _I'm watching you_ look from yesterday, he smiled brightly at Ruby, grateful for her unknowing part in his lie. No need to make her feel any more responsible for something she didn't do. Besides, he kind of owed her and all.

"It's alright, Rubes!" Jaune gave her a thumbs up with his torn sleeve arm. He even went as far as to laugh it off like one big joke. "No harm done! I'm fine. I'll just sew it back up."

There's a small _whimper_ coming from the adorable girl and Jaune could already feel a load of guilt just piling up on him. That, and having been lying to his team for the past two months was finally starting to get to him, wearing the Arc down to his last morals. But it'd all be over on Monday when he showed off his skills during combat class. Just two more days and the secrets would all be over.

"Really?" Ruby mumbled, hiding partially in Jaune's arm.

"Yea..." he smiled, ruffling up her hair. "It's nothing. Really. Okay?"

Using his sleeve to wipe away her heroic tears, Ruby hugged Jaune before disappearing in a rose of petals, no doubt to where _this_ Zwei was. Moments later, Weiss said something underneath her breathe about her partner being a _dolt_ and quietly excused herself to leave the table to go after her. Blake followed along, not wanting to lose the chance of missing any kind of punishment heading toward the intruder.

It's a secret-feline thing.

This left Yang along with Team JNPR. She not so stealthily left the table to go after her baby sister as well, but not before giving Jaune another _I'm watching you_ look. As if it's his fault that the imaginary dog he thought of just happened to be real, and had to be Ruby's of all imaginary dogs.

Why did it feel like Yang's slowly starting to suffocate the life out of him? Like he's slowly getting on her bad side without even trying.

After watching Team RWBY disperse, all heads of Team JNPR turn to stare at Jaune, waiting for some sort of response. However, their Fearless Leader at the moment was taking immense joy in his breakfast, ignoring his teammate's stares as hard as possible. His fork threatened to break under his tight hold, bending slightly to the force he used.

Honestly, he still couldn't believe that lie worked.

...

Having escaped Ren and his sudden damn perceptive _eyes_ , Jaune's heading toward his team's room to replace his hoodie and maybe practice a little on his Aura control before meeting up his team for some fun at Vale, that apparently Ren made him promise. Actually? Speaking of Aura? There's something that'd been bugging him for a while now. And it'd been eating away at him ever since this morning.

Stopping in front of his team's door, Jaune recalled how the Ursa Major got destroyed from the Aura ball in his hand earlier. He could even recount the feeling of the Grimm's body being ripped apart from every direction from when the ball of Aura made contact. To say he's interested in the overly destructive power would be a gross understatement. If anything, he wanted to test that power even more. He wanted to know how far he could push it.

Looking at his hand, Jaune settled to test the Aura once inside, but a random hand on his shoulder stopped his plans.

"Hey, Vomit Boy!"

Oh no! Jaune knew whose voice that was. And he didn't know whether or not she was mad. That only made it ten times worse.

"Y-Yang?" He hesitantly turned and slowly grinned while reaching for his scroll to unlock the door. Any second now. "How's it going? Is Ruby fine? I didn't mean to make her sad! I didn't even know you guys were hiding a dog in your room?"

It's true! It's not his fault that they _actually_ had a dog! And it was theirs! It just couldn't be anybody else's dog? Had to be Ruby Rose's! Couldn't be Weiss's! Nope! That would be too damn easy. Life didn't do easy.

"She's fine!" Why didn't Jaune believe her? "C'mon, I wanna show you something."

Tossing her arm around his shoulder, Yang forcefully led Jaune away from the sanctuary of his room. Her grin was bright, shiny, and innocent, and Jaune Arc's scared of every single part of it. She then led Jaune into her team's room and the blond wondered if he was going to die here, of all places?

Maybe if he made a run for it right now, he could just reach Nora in time to protect him at the cost of all his pancakes for a year? Sounded like a great plan. Probably would've even been a perfect plan if he hadn't been thinking about how to execute it before he was dragged into Team RWBY's room.

Damn it!

When he entered the room, he first took notice Blake reading on a bed suspended by some rope. Where the ropes connected he didn't know. And he could faintly notice the absence of both Ruby and Weiss. Okay, what was going on here?

Yang left Jaune to enter her team's bathroom and came out a second later with the dog of his lie in her hands, drooling excessively on the carpet. He's so stunned for words that he didn't notice Blake's small _hiss_ and the way she quietly scooted back on her bed.

"So, Jaune?" Yang quietly asked, holding up a dog to his face. "This is Zwei! Ruby sneaked him into Beacon before leaving home. Personally, I felt like Zwei was going to find some way here, anyways. Maybe dad would've done— _anyways_! Is this the dog that took a bite out of your sweater?"

Jaune blinked, his thoughts catching up with him after his sudden halt. She's not going to kill him? She just wanted to know if Zwei was the one that made his Grimm bitten sweater bite? Realizing he's going to live after all, Jaune tilted his head to get a better look of the dog. Zwei was adorable and tiny and was constantly wagging his tail. The dog even went far as to lick his nose and Yang couldn't help but _aw_ at that. So there was some Ruby in her after all.

In all, Zwei's as innocent as a dog could be. So the answer's a relatively easy one.

"Yup."

A lie got him into this and so a lie was going to get him out of it. Besides, he doubted Yang was actually going to do anything mean to their own dog. Maybe no food for the night or something tame like that, but nothing emotionally scarring for the little guy. And Ruby probably wouldn't even allow it as far as he figured. She'd probably say no more tummy rubs for a week. A punishment Jaune thought would scar her more than Zwei.

Now normally Jaune would've felt guilty at this point for lying _if_ he actually liked dogs. But by Monty he actually hated them with a strong passion. But that's a whole different story for a whole different time.

Shrugging, Jaune poked Zwei in the forehead with a bored stare. "But it's fine, Yang. I told you I don't care anymore."

Jaune then made his way toward the door, wanting to escape a small room with Yang and a dog in it. Yang, on the other hand, had expected Jaune to cave under Zwei's adorable drooling just like Weiss had. So seeing him totally uninterested in making friends with Zwei manage to throw her in a strange loop. No one had ever been able to resist Zwei cuteness!

"What?" Yang finally huffed with Blake silently watching from over her book after Jaune's seemingly disinterest in Zwei? "You don't like dogs or something?"

Jaune turned his head to grin with a cheeky smile. "Nope!"

...

Entering his team's room, Jaune quickly stretched his hands above his head, fixing some joints into place. That fight with the Ursai still left a lingering passion in his muscles, but his Aura's quickly taking care of that the more he concentrated. The Arc could actually feel his muscles expanding to accommodate for his growing control. It felt nice.

"Alone at last!" Jaune sighed happily in his team's room, easily creating a ball of Aura in his hand for future testing. He created another and aimlessly spun them in a circle as he fell back on his bed. "Now! Time to figure out what happened in the forest today and—!"

 _Knock_! _Knock_! _Knock_!

"Well... that was a great five seconds of training. I must do that again soon."

Absorbing the balls of Aura, Jaune silently hoped it wasn't Yang at the door asking—forcing—him to give Zwei another chance. Not going to happen. Possibly there's a chance Ruby's taking a crack at it. He'd be less lenient if that turned out to be the case. Maybe even Weiss if he's guessing. So imagine his surprise when he opened the door to find the last person he expected on the other side, book tightly held to chest.

"Blake? What are doing here?" Jaune flinched, that sounded harsher than he intended.

Fortunately for him, it didn't appear to affect her outward stoic appearance, and the girl simply cleared her throat in an awkward way, like she'd been practicing for this? Weird? Wonder what she wanted? They have less in common than the floorboards.

"Jaune?"

"Yes?"

"You said..." she stopped to carefully look over her shoulder at the hallway, and then her team's room, as if someone was spying on her. When the coast was clear, she silently held up a book she had been carrying. "You said... you don't like dogs. Is that true?"

"Yea, I don't?" He eyed her carefully, keeping his hand firmly on the door, wondering if she was here to do Yang's dirty work. Well, nope! Not gonna happen. Instead, he pushed the door, slowly closing it. "But thanks for reminding me. I needed that."

Blake, upon seeing him trying to slowly close the door, stepped forward with her book pressed against her nose, allowing only her eyes peeking out from above the cover. It's a low tactic from her more primal instincts that she thought she'd never use. It's embarrassing and slightly demoralizing, but damn did it work. Jaune's already stopped trying to close the door.

Pausing, Blake's bow twitched in anticipation at the idea of her plan. She needed this to work. Please work! "Wait... I wasn't going to try and talk to you about Zwei! I just wanted to know if I could read in here... sometimes?"

It took a moment for Jaune's brain to catch up with him, and he's still lost. "What?"

"I don't like dogs either!" Blake blurted out; going all in. "I can't enjoy my books with Ruby's dog in the room. And she won't put Zwei in the bathroom, so that's why I'm asking if I could read in here? Ever since Ruby secret surprised us with Zwei, reading's become such a hassle. And I really do love my books."

"How did she even sneak that dog into Beacon? And how didn't Professor Goodwitch or Headmaster Ozpin not see it the night before initiation?"

Blake paused, running her finger along her book. "Ruby did say something about having hid Zwei in her own personal weapon's bag and then her weapon's locker."

Jaune folded his hands, leaning on the door frame. "And Yang was okay with this?"

"... You try saying no to Ruby."

When it all finally sank in, Jaune had to pause to think about what Blake said. As a fellow dog hater, he could sympathize with her struggle, but he then looked over his shoulder to the empty room where he commenced all his Aura training— _alone_. Could he really give up some of his already limited training time to help a person he could barely call a friend? An acquaintance at the most? Even then that's a stretch on the word.

He wasn't so sure. After all, couldn't she just read somewhere else?

"What about the library?" And they start the series of questions. "Can't you read in there?"

Blake, determined not to lose, answered all his questions in a professional manner. "Yang never leaves me alone. She's always there waiting for me. And because of her we always get kicked out."

"Courtyard?"

"Too many people, I can't concentrate."

"Mess Hall?"

"I don't want my books getting covered in fats and grease. The pages will run."

"Anywhere else?"

"Ruby... doesn't understand what leave me alone actually means."

"Bathroom?"

"Uh, _no_."

"Uh?" Jaune scratched his head, looking back to the _empty_ room and then back down to his hand where he still wanted to figure out what happened with the Aura sphere back at Emerald Forest. He really wanted to start experimenting with his Aura right now, but an Arc was never supposed to turn down a friend in need. And even if he wanted to, pride be damned, he didn't know how.

Blake, having noticed Jaune's wavering resolve, quickly tried a Ruby Rose tactic. Shaking in place with big wide eyes, she hummed a little. "Please?"

What? She's desperate! She hadn't gotten to enjoy her beloved books in such a long time and she could smell Team JNPR's room, and it smelled dog free. No smell whatsoever! Only the smell of oranges and syrup! A smell she could definitely snuggle in.

Feeling his resolve melt, Jaune sighed in defeat. An Arc never would abandon a friend—er? Acquaintance? Yea, yea that worked. Even stranger would've been an acceptable answer with his _strangers are just friends you haven't made yet_ philosophy. Gosh darn it, mother. Even now, she gripped his heartstrings and played it like a talented musician.

Throwing the door open, Jaune waved his hands in for her to enter Team JNPR's domain. "Fine! You can come in."

Her smile made it all worthwhile.

Later, when the rest of Team JNPR returned to their room, they were quite surprised to find Blake there of all places, sitting on Jaune's bed and looking very pleased with no Fearless Leader in sight. When Nora blurted out _where's Jaune_ , Blake lazily shrugged and mention he said he had somewhere to go. No one bothered questioning her after that, instead a little worried to where their Fearless Leader had gone off to? Hopefully, nowhere too dangerous. Wait? Who were they kidding? This was Jaune!

Like he would go somewhere dangerous on purpose!

...

Jaune must be a glutton for pain. Who returned to the crime scene of their battle in little under an hour? Insane people, that's who! But he's strangely fine with that. Any sane person would've never conjured up the idea to create Excalibur. Sanity? How about no. Who needed something as useless as that?

Finding himself at the edge of Emerald Forest, Jaune decided his only way to practice was to slash at poor, defenseless trees. Barely an hour into it, he finished slashing and dicing up a smaller tree, pleased with Excalibur's cutting power. Occasionally, he fired his Aura gun straight into the air, watching the white Aura ball soar through the sky like a shooting star in the sky.

In fact, he kind of liked that; Shooting Star sounded like a great name for his Aura gun. He already named his Aura blade, Excalibur. Why not give the gun a name as well? Names meant someone cared enough to grow an attachment to said object. And Jaune was more than attached to his Aura weapons.

Concentrating his Aura into a couple of spheres, Jaune's about to store them within his palm, when he stopped to simply stare at them. Intrigued for a moment, he willed away Excalibur and forced the two Aura balls together into one larger Aura sphere. It felt just like the one Jaune accidentally attacked that Grimm with. A few experimental pokes proved that it wouldn't hurt him, but after witnessing its overly destructive power, he just had to be sure.

Maybe he could use his Aura balls as a form of attack? It's worth a shot.

Compressing the Aura spheres together, Jaune decided now was as good as a time as any to test out this theory. It almost made him giddy just thinking about it. Creating and discovering new Aura based attacks was bringing out this whole new side to him he'd only recently discovered. An Aura Scholar side that's engrossing all his attention on unveiling the secrets of Aura.

No wonder scientists went crazy over experiments. It's intoxicating when he finally got down to it.

Looking around, Jaune found a large stone that's just begging to be destroyed. Hearing its plea, he moved toward the boulder, though this time Jaune made sure there were no Grimm behind it or nearby for that matter. He'd prefer not to fight one if possible.

Standing next to the boulder, Jaune moved back a step, and then pushed his hand out toward the boulder, feeling the ball of Aura in his hand shred apart the rock in front of him. Quickly, the boulder was flung across the forest before breaking apart from the enormous force, scattering fragments of rock across the clearing.

All Jaune could do was whistle at the destruction with a mock solute. How was it that he never thought of using his Aura balls as a form of attack before escaped him. But now he's going to make up for lost time.

"Phew!" He grinned, cracking some of his bones into place. He's feeling a lot better now after losing his precious alone time in his team's room. Not that he's mad at Blake, just stressed. This was a great stress reliever. "Whoa! I'm getting so good at this! I wonder what I should _name_ that attack."

Before Jaune could even consider the endless possibilities, he heard a low growl coming from behind him. And there went his good mood.

Turning around, Jaune was met with one lone Ursa Minor, hardly above his own height. It growled in a loud roar, drooling at the seams. Seriously? How could he not notice these things around? It's easier to track Nora down than catch these guys before they manage to sneak up on him. And after they made themselves known only worsened his mood, because they're louder than gunfire when they reveal themselves.

Rubbing his forehead, Jaune ran his fingers through his hair, not in the mood to fight a Grimm again. Hell, he hadn't been in the mood to fight one last time. Oh well, what choice did he have? At least it's only one. There's the positive in this very _grim_ situation.

Yang would be proud.

"Ah! Fine! I'll make you a deal." Jaune warned mockishly, already preparing Shooting Star. Oh yea, that name was definitely perfect. Concentrating, the Aura around his body started to settle close to his skin, and his senses sharpened to a higher level. "If you run away right now, I'll promise not to shoot you in the back."

The Grimm in response tried to look menacing with its sharp teeth, bared fangs, and harden claws. A failed tactic as Jaune's fear of Grimm had been steadily declining as his Aura control improved. It then lunged forward toward Jaune, growling an ominous snarl that's not really impressive for such a young looking monster.

Stuck in mid-air, Jaune aimed at the airborne Grimm, finding that this Ursa—no, finding this Grimm unable to strike any fear in his heart. Nothing compared to when he first started here at Beacon. Absolutely nothing. And he'd never felt so close to feeling like he actually belong here. Right alongside his team and companions at Beacon Academy.

It's a nice a feeling that made Jaune Arc sighed perfectly as he aimed at the Grimm. Maybe, just _maybe_ everything's finally working out in his life. And he could finally live up to his family's legacy.

 _Time for a cool catchphrase!_

"Soar... Shooting Star!"

...

Returning back to Beacon, Jaune felt his Aura levels drained from the training. Everything else, however, felt perfectly with his Aura control keeping his body in great shape. He did feel a little winded, and some of his muscles felt awfully sore, but there's only so much this Arc could do.

After killing that Grimm with a direct shot from Shooting Star, and the ones from this morning, Jaune's confidence was at an all-time high. He could already feel his Aura working on restoring his body back to normal levels, and if he was to guess, his reserves have only gotten much larger since he'd started this Aura training two months ago.

Still, he couldn't help but feel a tad guilty at what started all this.

Crocea Mors.

Jaune knew he'd sort of abandoned his great-great grandfather's blade and honestly felt terrible about it. A sword of that honor and tradition shouldn't be left to be forgotten when he wasn't using it. It was all he had when he came to Vale, well, that and the shield. He didn't even remember the last time he'd actually polished either of the two. They only ever saw any use during training with Pyrrha or Professor Goodwitch's class.

Those weapons didn't deserve that.

"Maybe I should send them back home?"

Sighing to himself, Jaune hit himself on the head. Great! He killed his own good mood. Way to go Jaune. Guilt trip yourself into submission? Save everyone else the effort!

Shaking his head, Jaune settled to return back to his room to get ready for some team bonding, then some sparring with Pyrrha later. At least training with her always improved his reflexives with her ever-intense training regime, even if he wasn't getting any better with Crocea Mors. Fortunately, that no longer bothered the young Arc anymore.

Heading to his team's room, Jaune couldn't help but feel like he's forgetting something important. Something very, _very_ important.

...

"Welcome back." That's right. Now he remembered the reason he left the room in the first place. Blake Belladonna. Team RWBY's teammate who not so secretly read perverted books, was crashing in their room to avoid Zwei. "Did you finish whatever it was you were doing?"

 _Page Flip_!

Not really knowing how to talk to Blake, Jaune smiled naturally in response. "Yea. I'm going to go meet with the rest of my team for a team's day out. Nora's been wanting to go to Vale all week and promised all of us syrup in our sleep if we don't go."

Blake smiled behind her book, liking her new reading accommodations. "Well, I'll be here."

 _Page Flip_!

"Yea, sure..." Jaune absently answered, already heading out the door. The threat of syrup in his sleep hanged over his head because he knew Nora would actually go through with it. "Just don't touch any of Nora's stuff because—just don't touch any of it! Bad things will happen. Very bad, syrupy things."

"No problem."

 _Page Flip_!

...

Returning from their team's outing, Team JNPR's current destination was their room after a full day of fun and explosions—mostly explosions. The day had been both fun and tiring with only minor property damage after Nora consumed a large batch of candy when the rest of Team JNPR weren't looking.

The park would never quite be the same again.

Now late, both Pyrrha and Jaune agreed that training could wait until tomorrow. They were simply too tired after chasing their bubbly teammate, and Nora was hanging on Ren's back like a sloth, fast asleep from her sugar crash. Ren looked like he was ready to crash as well.

Using his Aura, Jaune found himself exceptionally tired from his earlier training and Nora hunting. Bed sounded so perfect right now; Jaune would shoot someone if they even thought about taking his bed from him. Point-blank with Shooting Star, right in the chest. Dead. Finished.

Entering their room, they were somewhat surprised to find Blake fast asleep on Jaune's bed. The book she must've been reading had idly fallen to her stomach as she must've dozed off some time ago.

Couldn't blame her.

Deciding her team was probably wondering where she was, Jaune figured it's his job to wake her and send her back to her room. Besides, that's his bed. And he would like to sleep in it. Plus, the thought of shooting Blake point-blank with Shooting Star did not bode too well with him with Yang being her partner and all. Something told him Yang's gunning for him in the most painful sense of the word.

Moving to wake Blake, Jaune lightly touched her shoulder, beginning to shake her out of dreamland.

"Blake? Wake up."

If Pyrrha had been more awake and alert, she probably would've warned Jaune that Blake might attack in her sleep, Huntsmen instincts and all. Instead, all Pyrrha could do was watch in slow motion as Blake's hand instinctively swiped out toward an totally unsuspecting Jaune Arc.

 _Thud_!

Both Pyrrha and Ren stopped what they were doing to stare at Jaune Arc, who caught Blake Belladonna's attack in mid-swing, looking totally nonchalant about it. Jaune didn't even seem to notice as he lazily shrugged Blake's hand away, shaking her awake with a little more vigor than before.

In reality, to Jaune with his Aura currently active, it looked like her hand was moving at normal speeds to him. He hadn't realized he caught Blake's attack at what was essentially half her normal attack speed. Fast compared to even normal standards. Ninja and all.

When Blake finally woke up, she headed back to her room, but not before _thanking_ Jaune for allowing her to read in their room. Pyrrha almost wanted to question Jaune at his unusual high-speed reflexives, especially with him in a zombie-like state, but her Fearless Leader's already passed out on his bed before she could even close the door to their room.

Smiling at the lost thought that Jaune's training was finally coming to fruition, she decided to follow his example, apparently Ren and Nora's as well, and crash for the night.

Tomorrow was going to be a big day.

...

Up and early, everyone in the assembly couldn't keep quiet as they waited for Ozpin to announce the teams fighting in the Vytal Festival. The assembly had been scheduled for the morning on a Sunday, but no one seemed to care. Today was an exception for anything.

Team JNPR and RWBY were currently sitting far from the assembly stage, having arrived late due to sleeping in, and Weiss wasn't exactly thrilled at almost being late to an assembly. And no amount of cookies from Ruby was going to fix her mood. But that didn't stop her leader from trying. Hoping to tempt the heiress with treats of chocolate chips and snicker doodles.

"I wonder which teams are going to fight in the Vytal Festival Tournament?" Yang yawned, fighting back drowsiness.

Ruby bounced in her seat in agreement, or maybe that was the mass of sugar talking from the two bags of cookies she just ate? Hard to tell.

Jaune, however, was less than enthusiastic about the announcement of the Vytal Tournament round up. He would've preferred to sleep in some more, but the threat of detention from Professor Goodwitch for anyone not attending had gotten him more than up.

"Attention, students!" Ozpin's voiced echoed in the room. He stood at the stage where he first gave his speech for all of Beacon's new students with a scroll in hand. "Are you ready to hear of the six teams that are going to compete in the Vytal Tournament?" He received a loud round of cheers. "Good! Then let's get started with the four teams that were selected by the professors of Beacon Academy."

Taping on his scroll, a large holo-screen opened, showcasing the team leaders of four different teams and none of them of which were Team RWBY's or Team JNPR's leaders.

"Please, if the leaders of the teams would so kindly make your way up to the podium."

The four selected leaders arrived on stage with students cheering them on. Two females and two males waved on stage, with three of them looking thrilled to be up there while one had a bored look adorning his features. Suffice to say, the reaction were mixed amongst themselves.

Tapping his scroll, Ozpin smiled at the rest of his students, waiting for the cheering to die down. When it did, he tapped another function of his scroll with his face appearing right on the holo-screen.

"Now we move forward to the team I have chosen to compete in Beacon's name." Team RWBY's leader appeared on screen. "If Ruby Rose would kindly appear on the—ah! I didn't even get to finish my sentence!" Ozpin smiled at the super speed Ruby, patting her on the head, and vaguely laughing at her older sister's cheering. "Good. Very good. That just leaves us with the team the people of Vale voted for."

Tapping his scroll, Ozpin began loading the results of the polls, enjoying the looks anticipation from his students. Truth be told, he wondered which team exactly the people of Vale voted for as well The odds were so mixed it was in anyone's favor.

 _Beep_!

Looking up from his scroll, Ozpin's glasses almost fell off from his face. There, in big bold letters, was Team JNPR in all its glory. Next to their name was a poll result counter, revealing the numbers from the polls results. It told of who and where exactly each one of votes came from, sporting a map that centered on Vale's general population, mostly near a park.

Pyrrha Nikos had a staggering ten percent with surprisingly Nora Valkyrie leading behind with eight percent. Ren and Jaune together brought in the other seven percent which basically made up Vale's voting percentage between the four kingdoms, definitely earning them a spot in the Vytal Tournament. But the most surprising part was the reasoning behind there choosing.

Under there names was a comment section talking about their team outing the day before. Nora's sugar rush destruction, plus the combine efforts and teamwork of Team JNPR, had apparently impressed the citizens of Vale into voting for them.

Wow, simply wow.

Stunned in silence with the rest of the student body, Ozpin quickly regained his wits and coughed into his scroll. "And would Jaune Arc of Team JNPR please step forward. The people of Vale have chosen your team to represent them."

Dumbstruck, Jaune didn't move until Nora suddenly kicked their Fearless Leader's butt off his seat, yelling out _go Fearless Leader_! Only then did he remember that he was in fact the leader and had to walk up to the stage with the other chosen leaders to participate in the Vytal Festival Tournament.

What a long and silent walk that had been.

Reaching the stage, Ozpin nodded at the silent Arc to stand next to the other leaders, and resumed his speech.

"Now that our teams have been chosen to fight in the Vytal Festival Tournament, it's time I begin explaining the new rules and challenges that were added to this year's Vytal Festival." Jaune suddenly had a very heavy feeling centering in the middle of his chest from Ozpin's announcement. "First and foremost, if any leader or team here would like to quit and back out of the tournament, you have until the end of week to do so before you forfeit your chance." Jaune visibly relaxed at the sudden way out. "Second, all teams that compete in tournament will go under a strict reevaluation to determine if whether or not you are fit to be a future Huntsmen team after the tournament is over. Remember, we must never settle for mediocrity."

Jaune could already picture himself talking his team out of fighting. Ren should be easy enough, and he could always bribe Nora. Now Pyrrha? That's going to be a little bit tricky—!

"And finally." Ozpin interrupted Jaune's inner monologue. "The winner of the Vytal tournament will be exempted from the second rule. For if you win, you deserve to be here." Flicking his scroll, Ozpin opened up the other academies chosen teams. He then turned to his students, pointing at the screen above their heads. "These are the other teams that have been chosen to compete as well. I advise you to study your opponents and learn whatever it is you can for the upcoming tournament. Knowledge is never a horrible thing to have in the heat of battle. Knowing your opponent can be the difference between victory and defeat."

Excited, the students within the assembly were all murmuring to themselves, talking about the new rule changes and team leader choices. More specifically, Jaune Arc, one of Beacon's worst students in terms of both academics and skills.

"Quiet down now." Ozpin's voiced boomed, grabbing their attention once more. "I have not yet finished explaining the rules of the Vytal Festival Tournament. We still need to talk about the round lineups..." he grinned, pushing a button on his scroll. A tournament lineup appeared. "The tournament will consist of a three point system. One point for three battles each."

A four panel box appeared on the holo-screen, "First is a standard team vs. team tournament fight with the winner getting one point." A two panel box appeared on the screen. "Then the fight will be followed up by a team duo fight between other duos. Again, the winner gets one point." And lastly a single box appeared on the holo-screen. "And finally the final fight will consists of a leader free-for-all tournament style battle with the winner receiving one point."

It may have sounded weird at first, but everyone eventually understood the point of the free-for-all. That way only one team could get three points and win the tournament while still maintaining a loser's bracket.

Taking a step forward, he turned to address the chosen team leaders, eyeing each one appreciatively. "The tournament will be held in two months. May the odds be in your favor. And good luck." Ozpin then turned to walk away from the stage, signaling his goodbye.

 _Beep_! _Beep_!

The room of students immediately dispersed to enjoy the rest of their Sunday, getting lost in the conversations of the Vytal Festival. Most of the leaders made their way back to their teams, all except one. Jaune Arc was lingering behind, wondering still how he's going to convince Pyrrha to not want to fight in the tournament.

If he's lucky, she wouldn't want to.

"You know you can't just lose, right?"

Turning around, Jaune's surprised to see Cardin Winchester standing next to him, hands tucked in an arrogant way into his pockets. He would almost be the same Cardin as before, but his signature smirk was gone and he didn't seem to be quite pleased either. Ever since that incident in the Forever Fall, a little more than three months ago, Cardin had been way more reserved.

To think a lot had changed this semester.

"What?" Jaune asked, tilting his head at his old bully.

"Losing." Cardin grunted, walking with Jaune hesitantly following beside him. They're in the back of the crowd where no one could hear them. "You don't have that option."

Jaune glared at him. "Why not?"

He rolled his eyes at Jaune, hitting him on the back of his head for good measure. "Think, Jaunie-boy! You heard what our damn Headmaster said. If you lose, they'll check your background... your name... your school... your _transcripts_."

Oh? Oh!

The news hit him like a freight train, raising the stakes, and Jaune couldn't help but agree. But then he shrugged as an answer. "Then we won't compete."

That was his plan from the start, anyways. No problem.

Cardin actually scoffed at this. Yes problem. "Please... you have _Pyrrha Nikos_ on your team. You were _chosen_ by Vale to fight in the tournament. Not competing now will draw even _more_ to attention to yourselves. People will ask questions... demand answers. And they'll get them. Face it, there's no way you can weasel yourself out of this one."

Stopping, Jaune stood still as the mass of students tried to get pass them. His eyes wavered when he came to the conclusion that Cardin was indeed right. Glaring, Jaune stared at him, slightly on edge. "Why are you telling me this?"

Cardin didn't bother paying him any real attention, finding everyone and everything more interesting that Jaune. It's a fair thing to ask. Life was just strange like that. And eventually, he began to walk away, not _really_ answering his question.

"You know? That's a good question. Why _am_ I telling you this?" Cardin's voice got harder to hear and Jaune thought he saw the signs of a smirk on the corner of his mouth. "I don't hate you... and we're not friends."

Watching his former bully walk away, Jaune couldn't help but think over Cardin's words. If he backed out, people would question why he did it, but if he fought and lost in the tournament, then he might be found out? The only way to avoid all that was to win or take his chances and back out and hope no one bothered doing a background check on the cowardly leader of Team JNPR. But Jaune knew from the start that he wasn't that lucky.

Oum help him!

Eh? Maybe Cardin's just trying to psyche him out? Definitely wouldn't be the first time. He could also just compete and do well. If he lost, he lost. He already had his Aura unlocked and a weapon he could call his own. Jaune had reached farther than he ever thought possible here at Beacon.

Who knew? Maybe they wouldn't check his transcripts if he fought hard enough?

Maybe he'd even _win_?!

Jaune actually laughed a little at that. Yea, like his team could win the Vytal Festival Tournament with him as a leader, but it probably couldn't hurt to compete. It wasn't like he had much of a choice, anyways. Cardin's right about just dropping out of the tournament, as crazy as that sounded. People would ask questions. There's no getting around _that_. In reality, he's stuck between a Grimm and a hard place.

Hn? He'd have to think it over.

It's not like losing would have any real consequences for anyone else but him, right?

Right!

... Right?

* * *

 **Author Notes:** Edited **\- 11/05/2017**


	4. Cloud

**Disclaimer:** I own nothing of RWBY.

* * *

 **Cloud**

 **By: Imyoshi**

Did any of it matter?

Winning or losing—did it matter?

Jaune Arc didn't know.

By Monty he didn't know and the thought's killing him in the inside.

Sometimes, during rare moments, Jaune considered there being some higher entity purposely making his life a living hell. Of course that'd be just crazy. Then again, irrational paranoia and Jaune Arc did go well together like syrup and pancakes, or Nora and Ren, no matter how many times Nora denied those claims. Not together-together his foot.

Sadly, the issue plagued him all of his Sunday. Jaune barely had time to practice any Aura control because of the lingering doubts. No notes were added to his Aura notebook because he had simply forgotten. The Arc still needed to write in Shooting Star's mechanisms and all things Aura he'd uncovered. A bad habit he needed to nip in the bud.

Lost so deep in thought, Jaune slowly walked to Professor Port's class, lagging behind all the other students and dragging his worries alongside him. Cardin's warning was hanging over his head, making the poor Arc question his next ulterior move, forcing him weigh to each possible scenario that he thought of, and the unintentional consequences that followed suit.

Truth be told, it'd be fairly simple to disregard Cardin's warning. Wave it off as nothing more. Forget about it and move on with his day like any other person would. However, if Jaune had learned anything here at Beacon, simply forgetting and pushing things to the side _would_ come back and haunt that person sooner or later—like not having any actual training before attending a Huntsmen Academy, being unable to properly use a weapon, and the list went on.

It truly was a true miracle that he's still breathing after surviving initiation.

Win? Lose? It's all so confusing to him! When did his life suddenly get so hard? And why wasn't he informed about it before it happened? What kind of world did he live in where bad news hit a person like a slap to the face, stunning them just long enough before the worst problem came in to deliver the killing blow.

Stopping in the middle of the hallway, Jaune ran a hand through his hair, looking at the nearby students hurrying to class. He envied their carefree attitudes and free spirits. Hmph, not a single care in this monster-driven world.

How unfair.

Glancing at Professor Port's door, Jaune sighed, figuring some class time would do him some good. Maybe it'd distract him from worries, just long enough for him to rethink things through and consider every possible path. For all he knew, it'd provide him the answer he searched for.

He shrugged and grinned weakly. "I guess I'll find out soon. Don't want to be late to class again. Pyrrha will wipe the floor with me in training if I am."

Entering the class, no one seemed to notice his presence as they were too busy trying to prepare for Professor Port's lecture. Setting up pillows, convenient book covers for hiding said pillows, ear plugs, etc. Before, some students would've actually mockingly glared at Jaune for almost being late. However, his constant ignoring and never-care attitude made the activity less than appealing. Eventually, everyone just stopped trying altogether.

Jaune Arc never noticed.

Sitting beside Pyrrha, who was probably the only other student, except for Weiss, to actually take notes in this class, Jaune scooted a bit away from her, just outside her peripheral vision, but not too far away to where she would become suspicious of his plans. Only enough so his partner wouldn't notice him writing down some notes and drawing doodles of ideas for his Aura manipulation into his notebook. He planned to fully detail his notes in his Aura notebook during Doctor Oobleck's class. In there he's given far more freedom.

Jaune grinned, still recounting the time she first caught him writing in his notebook. It'd taken her no longer than a few seconds to catch him red-handed. And at the time, he wasn't ready to talk, and still wasn't, about his idea for a new weapon to Pyrrha. He needed to figure things out on his own and become strong. His honor and pride as an Arc demanded it.

So, after a week of trial and error, Jaune finally managed to find a safe distance to silently sketch and write without her noticing. Luckily, poor Pyrrha always seemed to be so set on taking notes during Professor Port's lectures, the universe lucked out in his favor.

Thank Monty for small miracles.

Sighing, Jaune pulled out his Aura notebook, needing to add some post notes about the Aura ball and name change of the his handgun to Shooting Star. He wanted to finalize them in Doctor Oobleck's glass, maybe even try to think of a new weapon or a name for the Aura ball attack during the period. Anything that'd get the creative juices flowing. His ideas were cut short, however, when Pyrrha tapped him on the shoulder, looking unnervingly relaxed.

"You were almost late, Jaune." Pyrrha hummed, smile too innocent. The type of smile Yang had the night before. "Why?"

Damn! She noticed!

Training was going to be hell today.

Caught red-handed, Jaune used a signature Nora level grin, hoping for the best. If Nora could get away with practically anything with Ren watching her, the same rules should apply between him and Pyrrha. "I just got lost thinking about the Vytal Tournament. Kinda lost track of time thinking about it and what Professor Ozpin said. Truthfully, I'm still shaken up by it."

Pyrrha's eerie smile completely vanished at the mere mention of the Vytal Tournament. She looked a little drawn back instead, not really meeting his stare anymore. Thoughts of his lackluster training and improvement hit her hard. And before long, Pyrrha's sporting her _I'm sorry_ smile. Someone should've told the champion that her emotions were too heavily sewed onto her sleeves.

"Oh?" Jaune detected hints of both excitement and dread in her tone. It was enough to get rid of his Nora grin. "I was just thinking about that as well." That didn't surprise him. "How do you feel about the Vytal Tournament, Jaune? Do _you_ want to fight in the tournament? Because we don't have to if you don't feel up to it."

Pyrrha finished quickly—a little too quickly. Even Jaune wasn't that dense to not catch the double meaning of her question. She didn't think he was ready. And for a split-second, he felt relieved and insulted at the same.

Now he only felt insulted.

It'd be one thing if _he_ didn't want to fight. It's another if _someone_ else didn't think he's ready to fight. That attitude reminded him too much of his parents. Caring yet oblivious to his own feelings. Rather hurtful, really.

He could plainly see it her eyes that she was both thrilled at mention of the Vytal Tournament, but concerned for their _Fearless L_ eader's safety. She was more than ready to back out of the tournament for his sake, because beneath all the training, and all the crazy team work, Pyrrha didn't think he was ready. And the irony was if she had only beaten Cardin to the punch at talking to him, maybe this would've made everything a lot easier. And for another split-second, Jaune's somewhat grateful that Cardin _did_ beat her to him. Because Jaune Arc ten minutes ago would've taken the easy way out and probably would've forgo the consequences of not competing altogether.

Don't get the Arc wrong, he was very grateful for Pyrrha having his best interest at heart. That's something that made him smile. And Jaune planned to repay her kindness back any way possible, but it's still his decision to be made. Because even if he's somewhat fine with the idea of his fake transcripts coming into light, he preferred they not. Jaune Arc was finally feeling like he belonged here at Beacon.

Why throw that away for a what if?

And furthermore, he still had a whole week to sleep on it.

Grinning foolishly, he absently waved away her concern. "Don't worry about me, Pyrrha! I'll be fine. The real question is..." Jaune paused, poking her on the shoulder. "Are you going to be okay?"

There's a slight hesitation in her voice, and Pyrrha's about to answer, but Professor Port chose that moment to enter the class, carrying with him a stack of papers and chest, which was weird all on its own since the professor always stuck to lectures about his youth, rather than handout assignments and class group work.

Distracted, Jaune looked over to Pyrrha, who wasn't looking at him anymore, ready to take notes on _whatever_ it was Professor Port planned to talk about this time. But Jaune could see right through her hesitance today, her hand's shaking as she prepared to write. And as a friend and teammate, Jaune's more than worried.

He's about to bluntly ask what's wrong, but Professor Port chose that moment to excitedly start his next amazing Tale of Wonder and Daring Excitement, Professor Edition.

"Now class..."

He could ask later.

...

 _Beep_! _Beep_!

Students were already preparing to leave the class before Professor Port stopped them, holding the papers he walked in earlier with.

"Ah! Students! I forgot to inform you that Dust class will be held here today!" Port waved the papers around. "It seems there was a freak explosion in your normal Dust class due to a student's involvement with chemicals, I don't know the whole story. Since then, Professor Peach has asked me to take over while they clean the spill, so your Dust class has been moved here for today. Everyone, come pick up your assignment and find a partner!"

Talking amongst themselves, students went to go retrieve their assignment, choosing a partner to get started. Most chose their partners from initiation, but sometimes people liked to spice it up. Friend and non-friend, acquaintance and stranger, loner and gossiper, enemy and pacifist, human or Faunus, goth and emo, the variety of partner mix up could be endless. But usually it's partner and partner.

Grabbing the assignment, Jaune's about to call out Pyrrha when he saw Ruby and her already working together. As in partners!

Eyes wide, Jaune unknowingly crushed the paper in his hand, wondering what was wrong with Pyrrha. Something was clearly upsetting her, normally she was the one who searched _him_ out. Either that or maybe he's just over thinking this? No, no, he's definitely not overthinking this. Pyrrha's upset, but for the life he couldn't fathom why.

"Ahem!"

Looking over his shoulder, Jaune's mouth automatically formed a smile. "Snow Angel!"

Ignoring _that_ name, Weiss glared hard at Jaune, waving her paper frantically in his face. "Looks like were stuck working together." Wow? She made that sound like pure torture. "So? What do you _know_ about Dust?"

Honestly? "Nothing."

Opening her mouth to respond, she momentarily closed it, raising her finger to only lower it again. Then Weiss hid her face behind her paper. "Of all the people I could've gotten stuck with."

"What?"

"Nothing!" Glaring harder, she dragged Jaune to get some Dust supplies, hoping to finish this damn assignment as quickly as possible. "C'mon! The faster we finish this stupid assignment, the faster we don't have to talk to each other."

"That hurts, Snow Angel." Jaune crossed his hands over his heart, enjoying the way her cheeks flushed in anger.

"Stop calling me that!"

...

Pyrrha Nikos quickly learned that working with Ruby Rose as a Dust partner came with its own set of rules. Plainly speaking, it's like juggling a couple of bombs with one armed tied behind her back. Oddly difficult, dangerously life threatening, and just a hassle altogether with far too many problems that shouldn't normally happen, that alone made a person question why they even attempted the idea in the first place.

 _Boom_!

"Oops! Don't worry! I'll get it!" Ruby gasped, quickly putting out the Fire Dust before it could spread across their substitute workstation. Her tongue was out in concentration as she doused out the fire, completely oblivious to Pyrrha's ash covered form.

The champion had to wipe away the soot from her Dust goggles, finding the entire anomaly all the more confusing by the second. Her normally painted on smile was gone, replaced with a small frown and questionable tilt of the head as she watched Beacon's youngest and most adorable student, put out the small fire she created. The sight alone warranted questions and concerns for Pyrrha.

Lifting up her goggles, Pyrrha aided Ruby in putting out the fire, throwing her own two cents into the mix. "What I don't understand is how a person who spends so much time painstakingly tinkering with weapons, can be so terrible at handling Dust?"

Ruby huffed, crossing her arms in a very Weiss like way. "Hey! I'm not that bad."

"Uh, Ruby? The fire's spread to your sleeve."

"Gah!" Ruby panicked and fluffed out the fire like a crazy lunatic. Pyrrha couldn't help but giggle and then burst into a light laugh at Ruby's misfortune. Hilariousness aside, Ruby's instantly on the defensive. "It's not funny!"

Pyrrha's devilish smile said otherwise. "I'm sorry, but I must disagree. It is quite humorous." Now she could see why Weiss always complained about Ruby's Dust handling. It certainly was bad for one's health. "You should try and be more careful in the future."

Ignoring the champion, Ruby cautiously blew away the smoke from her outfit, finding nothing funny about her clumsiness. Everyone had a fault. Look at Jaune and his sneaky airsickness, or Yang and her dry sense of humor. To be perfectly fair, those probably weren't so much a weakness, rather more than a headache waiting to happen, but she needed to make her point clear.

Her older sister should not be allowed to make jokes.

Fluffing out the fire, Ruby proudly threw her hands onto her hips in victory. "There! We're done!"

Pyrrha almost made it a point to ask whether or not they should double check their figures, to make sure the assignment was truly complete, but stopped herself because she honestly didn't care. Her mind's too preoccupied to be worried about such trivial things. Ruby's little fire stunt only seemed to distract her for a bit. A distraction it may have been, but it's also a reminder of how totally unprepared a person could be at a moment's notice.

She's still not one-hundred percent sure what actually made her seek out Ruby instead of Jaune. Maybe she needed time to think about Jaune's weird behavior and the upcoming Vytal Tournament, two things that couldn't be done if he happened to be her Dust partner. Or possibly, Pyrrha wanted a change in Dust partners for the sake of breaking the cycle? Hard to tell.

 _Slam_!

Blinking out of her stupor, Pyrrha looked over to find Ruby pulling out a steel case from out of nowhere. Inside, there were empty bullet shells just waiting to be filled with a variety of Dust, and Ruby's greedy fingers grabbed a few from their remaining stockpile. The hungry grin on her face didn't escape the champion and her curiosity was peaked when Ruby began slowly fixing the perfect amount of gunpowder and Dust into each and every bullet shell, as if the process was as simple as breathing.

This time Pyrrha merely shook her head in amusement. "Again? How you move with such grace when handling your weapons, but Dust alone will forever make you act like a klutz?"

Ruby mumbled something unintelligible underneath her breath, busy filling the bullet shells in absolute concentration. Her cheeks were puffed out a little and Pyrrha could definitely see some of Weiss's personality mixed into the bunch. Seemed like Weiss's presence may have been an angry influence on the ever impressionable Ruby Rose. Kind of ironic when she though about it. Pyrrha doubted Weiss got anything from Ruby.

Such was the cruel Fate of irony.

Peeking to where Jaune and Weiss were, Pyrrha stumbled upon a lackluster pair of Dust partners. Weiss seemed to be ordering Jaune around, while her leader tried his best to follow said orders. They weren't a well-oiled team, then again, neither were Jaune and her when it came to Dust, but at least Pyrrha could say they worked better together than they did. It's a hollow victory. Not even the accomplishment could rob away the doubts she's feeling in the pit of her stomach.

Could she believe in her leader to be ready for the Vytal Tournament? His smile spoke one thing, but her mind said another. It's such a confusing question to ponder over that Pyrrha found the entire ordeal emotionally exhausting. Honestly, she had sort of hoped he took the opening she gave him to back out. The surprise when he didn't stunned her into a mute silence.

Such confidence eluded her. Where had that pride been during their nightly training and how could she attain it? Sometimes, after sparring, she wondered if he even cared about the training sessions. Didn't seem like it even though he thoroughly put himself through the grinder every night. So there's that. His endless goal to improve himself was both enduring and haunting, enough that the champion's afraid to tell the bumbling knight he's not improving. But how could she with that perfect smile of his?

When it came down to it, maybe she just needed time to figure things out before it all came spiraling out of control. Maybe, with enough perseverance and sweat, she could stop whatever the problem was from happening, before it's too late to turn back.

Forgetting about the problem for now, Pyrrha allowed her eyes to roam back to Ruby, finding her still refilling the bullet cases to the brim with Dust. The activity's tranquil to watch, easing some of her burdens, if only for a little while. As a matter of fact, she could use some more Dust ammunition, too. Her stock's running low and they _were_ done with the assignment already.

...

So working with Weiss Schnee on a Dust project tended to be a one-sided deal. In other words, she did all the real Dust work and Jaune was her lackey who did all the heavy lifting. Heavy lifting code for _here, hold this and don't drop it_. Or maybe he was the test dummy and she tested all her Dust experiments on him, _does this burn_? _How many fingers am I holding_? _What day is it?_

Sometimes she would just glare at him for no reason and then get back to work.

Eventually, throughout the painful process, Weiss had just taken over the whole project on her own and pushed Jaune aside to work in peace. This left Team JNPR's Fearless Leader to watch her work in silence, noticing how she tested the vials of Dust separately in firm concentration. Each and every observation was carefully calculated and written down for future results. The sight honestly sucked the life out of him.

Bored, Jaune peered down at his Aura notebook, wanting to write details, and then across the room where he spotted Nora taking some skull plaque, with overly large canines, from Professor Port's wall. She's holding Dust vials tucked beneath her arm in a half-hazardous way. She then ran up to Ren, tripped, and threw all the vials of Dust and plaque toward Ren's direction. Luckily, the ninja caught all of the items before they fell. He then proceeded to verbally chastise Nora for her reckless antics. Although, Nora's guilty smile made it appear that Ren couldn't keep up his charade with no real punishment in the horizon.

Jaune smiled deliciously at Nora's antics. Seriously! Nora could've caused a freak explosion and created a new Faunus or something along those lines, and Ren would've still defended her! Which in the end, could've possibly led to some interesting White Fang problems that he'd heard so much about. Now wouldn't that have been some crazy story?

He actually kind of wished Ren hadn't caught all those Dust vials. It'd be lying to say he hadn't been curious to what might of happened if Nora successfully dropped them.

Pity.

Looking down at his Aura notebook, Jaune lost to temptation and was about to open it, that was until Weiss's shaking of a vial of red Dust caught his attention. She was promptly adding a mix of her Aura and other Dust particles into the vial. The mixing made him scratch his head at possibly potential ideas, but all proved worthless with his limited knowledge of Dust. Unlike Aura, Dust required a finer touch of expertise and understanding.

He lacked both.

"What are you doing?" Weiss jumped from Jaune's sudden question, apparently she'd forgotten he was her lab partner.

Screaming, Weiss almost dropped her vial of Dust. A second later, she kicked him for his amusing grin. "Don't do that, you dolt! You scared me! I almost dropped this! Do you have any idea what would've happened if I did?!"

He couldn't say that he did. "Nope!"

"Oum!" Rubbing her forehead, she couldn't help but compare this to when Ruby caused a similar situation. Weiss then waved the vial in front of his face, poking him roughly on the shoulder, hoping it stung. "It would've caused an explosion and destroyed the entire room."

He tilted his head. That tiny vial of Dust would've done all that? Aura he could believe, he'd only witnessed the power firsthand, but Dust? "Really? That tiny vial of Dust would've done all that?"

"Yes, really!" Weiss answered, placing the vial down. "That's why you gotta be care and not sneak up on me!"

"... I was standing right next you."

Ignoring him, Weiss checked the vials, inspecting them with a critical eye. She then nodded in satisfaction and pulled out a few vials of empty Dust cartridges from her pocket. Slowly, she began to add a variety colors into her own vials, sticking her tongue out in Ruby level of adorableness. The act pulled him in, and he leaned closer to peak over her shoulder in acute fascination.

"What are you doing this time?" Jaune said slowly, not wanting to scare her again unless he wanted to get kicked in the leg again. Which he didn't want because that hurt almost as bad as Yang's Friendly Fist of Affection or Nora's Death Hug of Friendship.

Almost.

Checking the vials, Weiss put them down, making sure they were properly sealed, her Schnee Dust training in full effect. She then looked at Jaune with an impassive glare. "I'm refilling my Dust cartridges for Myrtenaster?" Jaune appeared lost. "You know..." she gestured by pretending to stab him with an invisible stick. "My weapon?"

Now he remembered. "Oh! That's right! You use a lot of Dust when you fight!" Jaune laughed, earning an _humph_ from Weiss. He glared at the random assortment of vials on the desk. "How does Dust even work?"

He's honestly curious. Jaune's never used the darn thing before. Crocea Mors wasn't exactly built to house Dust and the shield did even less. Not to say he never thought about using Dust, he just couldn't. Limitations aside, he knew next to nothing about the strange shards, always getting lost on the subject matter whenever Pyrrha tried fruitlessly to explain to the concept behind them.

Weiss glared at Jaune like he'd grown a second head. "You're not joking, are you? You honestly don't know how to use Dust?"

Jaune shrugged. "Never needed the stuff."

"Regardless, do you even _know_ what Dust is?" Weiss leaned forward and awaited an answer with her arms crossed and foot busy tapping impatiently. Jaune's only response was another shrug. She actually scoffed. "I can't believe you! Are you even passing this class?!"

He was about to counter, but Weiss raised one finger to silence him. He remained quiet as she pulled out a pamphlet from combat skirt, title on the front being _Dust for Dummies._ Her icy demeanor didn't prevent her from shoving it into Jaune's hands, but it did stop him from even reading the first word. She's too confident in her Dust knowledge to allow a pamphlet to show her up.

"Dust is a source of energy we as civilization use. To utilize its power as Huntsmen, we need Aura." Really? Weiss was lecturing him? Why give him the pamphlet in the first place? "Dust comes in the form of a powder like from the one I'm filling these cartridges with and a crystallize form. They also come in four basic colors that are green, blue, red, and yellow." She then pointed over to Ruby from across the room, catching her infusing some powder Dust into bullet shells alongside Pyrrha who's doing the same. "As you can see. Dust can also be used in ammunition like Ruby is doing. And Huntsmen with a high level of control can manipulate Dust and do all sorts of elegant feats with them. "

Jaune was stunned he never knew this about Dust. He did always just work on the assignment with Pyrrha and never actually bothered to learn what Dust actually was or did. Too bad he couldn't see a practical use for him since he controlled and manipulated Aura into various sizes.

Maybe he could find a different use for Dust?

"You can also try to create new ways to make use of Dust..." Weiss was _still_ talking. He hoped she didn't catch him spacing out. "By mix and matching various powders and crystals, you can make a whole new form of unique Dust. It all depends what you mix and match." Weiss suddenly glared at Jaune, wanting to kick him again. Jaune reacted easily enough by hiding behind that pamphlet she gave him. "You got that?" she demanded. Jaune shook his head in fear. Weiss only smirked. "Good!"

Turning around, she went back to refilling some of Myrtenaster's Dust cartridges, immensely pleased that she was able to educate the dunce in something as important as Dust. Humanity so owed her one! Meanwhile, Jaune's still thinking about Dust and what Weiss said. Dust could used as a weapon and there were apparently unique forms of Dust as well? Jaune even recalled how she commented that Aura directly affected Dust.

That made the Arc wonder.

Grabbing his Aura notebook, Jaune looked over a few of the notes he'd written about Aura. There wasn't much in a weaponize Dust Aura based technique that he's too fond of considering, lacking knowledge to make it happen. Jaune also didn't think he needed help in making a weapon, anymore, or extra firepower, but Weiss did mention that Dust could be used in a variety of different ways.

Gazing over a few old notes, Jaune stopped at one he'd underlined a crucial amount of times.

Aura exhaustion.

A problem that's he familiar with, Aura exhaustion only happened whenever a person ran out of Aura. Jaune's personally never hit zero, but prior to past couple of days, Shooting Star required usage of Aura he couldn't reclaim, not to mention taking damage weakened his Aura shield and healing was another problem entirely. Sadly, Jaune went through his Aura reserves faster than the rest. Large amount of Aura or not, he needed to find a way to even the playing field.

And that's where his new idea for Dust came into play.

Could he maybe find a way to utilize Dust to fix his depleting Aura problem? Now that's an interesting idea worth pursuing. But first, he needed the knowledge to make it bare fruition. And the only person he could think to ask for any sort of help, didn't take to kindly to his presence. Still, the Arc got around Ruby's Yang defense system. Surely he could warm Weiss's cold exterior.

Putting his notebook away, Jaune cautiously tapped Weiss on the shoulder, silently fearing her wrath. Please don't get angry!

"What is it now?" Weiss grumbled, turning around to deal with Jaune. "I'm almost done refilling Myrtenaster. So this better be good?" Jaune almost scoffed. She acted like he's _really_ torturing her.

Putting aside her blatant attitude, he held up a Dust vial, picking any random color for good measure. It was blue. Not his favorite color, but enough to get his point across.

"Can you store Aura into Dust?" Jaune questioned, putting down the vial with Nora level care. "You know? So when you're running low on Aura, you can just refill yourself back up!"

The question caught Weiss by surprise and she remained silent for a while, simply fixated at staring at him heatedly. Jaune slowly feared he might've asked a dumb question and began to channel his Aura to his legs for protection, however, Weiss surprised him and for once shrugged in response to a Dust question she had little knowledge over. Though there was a hint of wonder in her eyes.

"We don't have any type of Dust that can do that..." she answered, holding a yellow vial. "But there are some cases of Dust crystals having been known to store Aura, but they're incredibly rare and no one knows how to make them. _Our_ Schnee Dust scientists aren't even sure where to begin to recreating them. Some even say they're impossible to make unnaturally."

Jaune disregarded all that info except for the bits he wanted. "But there _are_ Dust crystals that can store Aura?"

"Yes..." she answered slowly, leaning on the desk. Now she's peaked at his sudden interest. "Why?"

Thinking over her question, Jaune could lie and say he was curious? But unlike when he asked Ruby for help on weapons, Dust was a totally different concept altogether, one he had absolutely no knowledge or prior experience on. Completely zero! Chances were he needed more help than a simple one-sided conversation. Besides, Weiss could probably read him like a book. So lying would end up wasting both their time.

Nonetheless, he answered just as carefully with Weiss as he did with Ruby. "I want to try and create a Dust crystal that restores Aura. So I never run out! So I was wondering if you can teach me about Dust?"

Frowning, Weiss could see past some parts of his harmless, guilty smile, but not all of it. Recently, Jaune's built himself to become a better liar than she first initially thought. There's a hint of truth in his claim, but he's hiding something—something very important. This of course led to some complication on her part. There's no way she's going to help anyone if they couldn't be completely honest with her.

"Nope!"

"C'mon! I'll owe you one!" Jaune begged. Weiss wasn't budging. Okay, time to play a card he'd been saving for a long time for such an occasion. "I'll even stop calling you Snow Angel."

Weiss faltered a little, glaring even harder at Jaune's sudden offer he'd thrown into the mix. She knew he's still hiding something, but how could she pass up this opportunity? It might never come again! Her business etiquette demanded she accepted the deal.

Stepping forward, she somehow made him feel like the small one between the two. "And how do I know you won't go back on your word?"

"Because an Arc's word is everything to their honor." Jaune answered with an unusual serious steel in his voice. "Our words mean more to us than anything."

Weiss lessened her glare, finding nothing but truth behind the weight of his words. As a Schnee, honoring their word was important to her, too. Now that's something she totally understood from the deepest depths of her soul.

Tapping her fingers against her arm, Weiss suddenly kicked an unsuspecting Jaune on the shin, grabbing a Dust vial from the spares in the process.

"Well start with the four basic Dust types..."

Jaune Arc couldn't help but smile through the sheer, blinding pain.

...

Relaxing back into his seat, Ren held up a vial of Dust and played with it in a bored fashion, done with the class assignment. He took a moment to calmly look away to see Nora lounging lazily on the table with her arms spread out far. There's a goofy expression on her face and Lie Ren didn't have to think twice to know she's falling fast asleep. Dust class always lost its appeal to her whenever he took over and basically shut down or forced actual work upon her. Waste of time on his part. He always ended up doing all the work in the end. Dust never was her specialty. He took care of all her Dust needs, not able to trust her around the dangerous substances. Explosions and mishaps were Nora's ace in the sleeve. And he could never truly say no to her. Not while she acting all goofy and innocent.

Acting being the key word. Of course he knew better than to believe any innocent smile that sprouted from her mouth, but he would admit he's weak to her troublesome charm. Didn't stop the ninja from disturbing her almost-slumber, gently shaking her awake with ignorance to her whining.

"Get up, Nora. We have to clean up before the bell rings."

Nora pouted with her arms out. "Why won't you let me hold any of the Dust?" Ren raised a single brow and shook the Dust vial temptingly in front of her. He then proceeded to drop and catch it at the very last second. "You never let me hold the Dust."

Her childhood friend held up plaque for her to see. "Because _you're_ worse than _Ruby_ when it comes to messing around with Dust. I cannot trust you around such dangerous materials. Who knows what kind of mess you'll get yourself into."

Nora sat straight up with a fire in her belly. "I'm not that bad! You're just being all paranoid and boring! Stop doing that!"

A little boop to the nose ended it all. "Last week I had to stop you from eating a Dust shard just because you thought the color looked appetizing."

"It did!" Nora then realized her mistake when Ren calmly smirked at her slip up. Now she knew she'd lost the battle, but she fought back a hopeless fight, anyways. "You just don't know what a good idea looks like even if it kicked you in the butt! One day I'll prove I'm a genius with Dust! Mark my words!"

Ren _booped_ her again on the nose.

...

Working through the rest of Dust class, hoping to teach Jaune the ins and out of Dust powders and crystalline structure, Weiss noticed he only took notes on some part certain parts of her lesson. Mostly Aura based facts and any info he could get on Aura manipulation and crystals. There was a certain spark in his eyes whenever the subject of Aura came up that Weiss only saw in Ruby when she was messing around with Crescent Rose, or reading Vale's monthly _Weapons are Your Friends_ catalog.

Waving it off for later notes, Weiss remembered something that she'd been meaning to ask Pyrrha. But asking their team's _Fearless_ Leader should suffice for her. Carefully watching as Jaune wrote down some notes in his weird notebook, Weiss, as casually—cringed worthy—as possible, attempted to make some form of small talk.

"So... are you fighting in the tournament?" Weiss not so casually asked, watching as Jaune suddenly stopped what's he doing to slowly lower the Dust vials in his hands.

He completely forgot about the tournament.

Being reminded about having to deal with _that_ problem, Jaune sighed miserably, placing the vials of Dust down. He slowly tilted his head at her, tone suddenly tired. "Are you?"

Weiss actually scoffed at the ridiculous question! "Of course our team is going to fight! Ozpin personally chose us himself. There's no greater honor! We represent all of Beacon! I actually plan to persuade our team to go on a trip to Vale to—!"

Weiss couldn't see it, too busy with her amazing speech, but Jaune's completely ignoring her. A personal first. Being reminded about the upcoming Vytal Tournament had effortlessly crushed his mood and made studying Dust no longer important or fascinating. At least he got some interesting notes down before his spirits got crushed. Jaune's even got a fascinating theory he wanted to test out and planned to head to Vale to pick up some Dust crystals later.

But for now, he's stuck having to deal with the Vytal Tournament issue.

"—and that's why Team RWBY is going to prevail in the Vytal Tournament!" Weiss finished, almost out of breath. "And what about Team JNPR?"

Jaune laughed a smudge. She's more like Ruby than he'd given her credit for, or maybe Ruby's adorable influence on her went beyond his previous assumption? Either way, this Weiss Schnee's much better than the first one he met during initiation.

"Yea... I'm not sure yet?" Jaune pursed his lips, finding the Dust vials a lot more interesting to look at. "Haven't talked about it with my team yet. Too busy with... all of this!"

"Well..." she hotly added. "If your team d _oes_ think about fighting in the tournament, you should know what you're up against." Pulling out her scroll, Weiss opened up a screen with the tournament barracks, filtering for all the teams that's not her own. She then handed Jaune her scroll, flicking through the candidates. "Here! Take a look. It pays to be prepared."

Jaune scrolled down a weird list, finding info on all the teams competing, including his. He found that everyone had a ranking system in the network based off merit, skill, and overall status. Pyrrha was one of the top five Huntsmen-in-Training on the list with four others he didn't recognize. But three of them ranked higher than Pyrrha.

That was a shock all in itself.

There were three other Huntsmen-in-Training in other academies, actually ranked _higher_ than Pyrrha! That alone proved to be a scary thought. And these Huntsmen-in-Training were going to be in the Vytal Tournament?! An even scarier thought. And Weiss wanted to compete against them?

Yup! Something was seriously wrong with her.

Checking other stats on the competition, Jaune's given a library of wealth. He could personally see an overall gauge of each individual Huntsmen-in-Training fighting skills and known Semblances, plus the weapons they used. Some of the students' Semblances were not available. Meaning either they didn't have one—which Jaune highly doubted—or they've kept it a well-hidden secret.

Curious, Jaune searched for his own status and found that he's on the very bottom of the list, labeled as no threat. Irony was not powerful enough of a word to describe the moment.

His stats were low with a poor record of his fighting skills and non-existent Semblance. With a sigh of relief, there weren't any records of his Aura based techniques. At least no one was spying on him. That's good. In fact, the tournament stats read that his Aura control was below average at best.

For once Jaune Arc took real offense to something.

Reading past that, he found there was even a comment section on his profile page for other Huntsmen-in-Training to comment on what an _easy win_ he'll be in the tournament. If he even bothered showing up!

Staring at the screen, Jaune wondered if he should back out anymore? Not to say peer pressure got to him, but peer pressure totally got to him, and he wanted nothing more than to wipe all the arrogant fighters faces into the dirt. Years of being called useless have taken their toll on his soul, and he's more than ready to unleash fury upon the unsuspecting fools. Let them see what it's like to get cut by Excalibur or shot by Shooting Star.

Needing more time to think it over, Jaune handed Weiss back her scroll, shooting her a grateful smile. "This is awfully nice of you... Weiss." Whoa? That's going to take some time getting used to. Snow Angel just rolled off the tongue so much better. "You're the best!"

Weiss accepted his compliment with fluster pride, playing with the hem of her combat skirt. She refused to look away. "Of course! I'm glad you're finally seeing that! Maybe there is hope for you yet?"

For the life of him, Jaune couldn't find a reason not to laugh, so he did. Even Weiss joined him against her futile efforts not to.

 _Beep_! _Beep_!

Oh? Time for lunch? Maybe he could get some quick Aura training done in his team's room, and a chance to finally think in peace over this whole Vytal Tournament nonsense once and for all.

...

Life really was unfair.

 _Not_ alone in his team's room, Jaune had completely forgotten he promised Blake essentially unlimited reading time in his team's room anytime she managed to catch him and ask. And he had only made it three steps outside Professor Port's class before she jumped out from the shadows like a sneaky ninja, asking if she could read in his room. And here he was—in his team's room—with Blake reading on the comfort of his bed, lost in one of her fantasy worlds.

There went Aura training.

Hn? Maybe he could still get some advice on this whole Vytal Tournament thing? Blake did read a lot of books, and he meant a ton. She probably knew all about inner conflict and turmoil type of stuff?

Worth a try.

Scratching his cheek, Jaune sat on an opposite bed, unsure how to proceed. They're not exactly friends, but they're getting there. And he could always use more friends in this crazy world.

"Hey, Blake?" Said person looked above her book's cover, eyes stoic. "Can I ask you something?"

"You just did."

Jaune didn't appear to have heard her. "I was wondering... have you ever had to make a big decision?"

Blake stared at Jaune for a moment, studying his slightly nervous posture. She could just answer with a simple _yes_ and move on. But he was allowing her to read in his team's room in peace and away from the intruder. So she owed him an honest answer.

Twitching her ears, Blake lowered her book a bit more. "Could you elaborate more?" Jaune didn't say anything, totally lost. "I mean, can you explain what you mean, Jaune? What are you asking?"

 _Page Flip_!

Understanding her question now, Jaune tried to find the right words to say, wondering what the right question was. He didn't want to rob anymore of her reading time. She only got so much now. Fellow dog haters gotta stick together!

Leaning on the wall for support, the right words finally came to him. Sort of. "Did you ever have to make a choice that could change your entire life? No!" Jaune paused, getting off the wall. He tried again, "Did you ever have to make a choice that could change the lives of the people around you? Wait!" He stopped, humoring himself. "Never mind. Who am I kidding? Of course you haven't. You're always so level headed and calm. Problems like that have probably never happened to you."

Heading out, Jaune absently waved to Blake, needing to find somewhere else to think. "Thanks for listening anyways, Blake. Sorry to cut into some of your reading time! Weiss is planning a trip to Vale later for your team, so don't forget!"

If Jaune Arc had stayed behind a little while longer, he would've noticed Blake clutching the book in her hands unusually hard with her eyes a bit cloudy from memories of leaving a certain individual.

...

Missing lunch, Jaune wandered the tangled halls of Beacon, in search for an answer to his many questions. Yet, he'd found absolutely nothing to further his search. Only a very displeased Professor Goodwitch who was moving in a very brisk pace across Beacon's halls, weapon out, shoulders back, all angry.

Lifting his arm foolishly, Jaune waved to his Professor. "Hey, Professor Goodwitch!"

"Mr. Arc!" she nodded roughly, not paying any actual attention to him. "If you would excuse me."

Jaune couldn't even ask how her day's going before she's already entering a room, slamming the door shut behind her.

"Whoa? What's she so angry about?" As long as it had nothing to do with him, Jaune would overlook it, figuring their Headmaster must've done something crazy again. Like when he replaced all the decaf with normal coffee that one week. What a week that had been.

Poor Professor Oobleck.

Turning a corner, Jaune spotted Pyrrha aimlessly wandering the same halls, but she hadn't noticed him yet. Arms raised, he's about to yell out to her when he noticed her shoulders more slumped than normal. Even her ever present smile was nowhere to be found. The memories of Pyrrha's sudden strange attitude from Professor Port's class came back to haunt him, and Jaune found himself concerned for his partner.

Lowering his arm, Jaune quietly ran up to her, not wanting to give her time to wipe away her frown. He then jumped right out in front of her, ready to asks what's wrong before earning a free shocked fist to the gut.

Yup! He deserved that.

"Jaune!" Pyrrha was beside him in no time, checking for any injuries. "I'm sorry! But you should know better than to sneak up on me like that!"

Jaune's starting to see a pattern here with first Weiss and now Pyrrha. Sneaking up on girls proved to be a bad idea. He didn't even want to imagine what sneaking up on Yang was like. Probably filled with loads of torture and pain.

Sucking in the pain, he stood up strong, ignoring everything but his partner. "Didn't even hurt!" Yes. Lying almost made the pain go away. "Anyways, I was just walking by and saw you wandering the halls. Thought I join you?"

Anybody would've noticed the panicked expression on Pyrrha's face the moment it appeared. Even Jaune wasn't that dense when she tried to cover it up with a weak smile. "That would be most welcomed, Jaune."

Tagging alongside her, Jaune crossed his arms behind his head, trying to recall what the last thing Pyrrha and he were talking about in Professor Port's class. Then he remembers all too well the conversation they last had. His questions came back. And this time his partner had no escape route.

Looking over to Pyrrha, Jaune could see her smile was not quite reaching up to her eyes, practically mirroring her smiles from late-night training. Whatever was bothering her about the Vytal Festival must've been huge to shock his partner this way. He'd never seen The Invincible Pyrrha Nikos like this. Troubling to say the least.

"So..." Jaune trailed, forcing some humor into his voice to ease the awkward silence. "The Vytal Tournament? That's a thing?" Apparently that was the wrong thing to say as Pyrrha's smile completely died. "Uh, Pyrrha? You okay?"

"Jaune?" she paused, looking overly concerned. "Are you sure you want to fight in the Vytal Tournament?"

It wasn't even a question. Jaune _knew_ he didn't want to fight in the Vytal Tournament. He just wasn't so sure he had the option to say _no_. Not anymore. Not with expulsion on the table.

"I don't want to..." he admitted, making light of the situation. "But it would look kind of bad if we don't fight, Pyrrha. Vale chose us. And Team JNPR is not a bunch of cowards... I should know. Remember, I'm the Fearless Leader!"

"I know... I just don't want to see you get hurt, Jaune."

"What?" he playfully mocked, bumping her shoulder with his. "You don't think we can win?"

Her silence said it all. Pyrrha refused to answer or meet his eyes anymore, and it's slowly starting to get to him. Glaring for a split second, Jaune decided to try a more direct tactic.

Stopping their awkward walk, Jaune grabbed her by the shoulder. "Pyrrha? What's wrong?"

Pyrrha remained stubborn. "Nothing."

Jaune sighed and stopped her from shaking her head and decided to just lay it all out there. They probably should've had this talk a long time ago, anyways. Sooner would've been better, but better late than never.

"This is about our training, isn't it?" And her wide eyes give away all her secrets. He just scratched the corner of his cheek, laughing tiredly. "I know I haven't been improving much over the few the months." He stopped her before she could deny it, hand out. "Trust me, I _know_ all about it. You're a pretty terrible liar."

Stubbornly refusing to believe Jaune, Pyrrha looked away, making small fist in anger. Jaune just idly waited for her to say something—anything, really. He felt ashamed, bitter on the inside.

Pyrrha really wanted him to improve with Crocea Mors and on his swordplay. And he did get better, his improvement did happen, but it was like he reached his limit with that sword two months ago when he decided enough was enough. Even after all his practice with Aura manipulation and countless sparring session with Pyrrha, adding Aura to the blade hadn't made the sword felt anymore _right_ in his hands than not adding Aura. It wasn't her fault, not at all.

Eventually, he finally discovered he couldn't add Aura to Crocea Mors period. The sword for some reason rejected Aura. At first he didn't actually believe it, refusing to accept such a baseless theory from simple trial and error, but now with a far greater handle of Aura control, and no results to show for it, Jaune settled on the conclusion that Crocea Mors rejected Aura.

Crocea Mors rejected Aura. Plain and simple. A hard reality to swallow, but the truth nonetheless.

So what's the point in giving a weapon all the power in the world if it couldn't even be used to the fullest potential? That's the whole reason he bothered creating his own weapon in the first place. And at some point during all the weeks of training, both Pyrrha and Jaune accepted he wasn't improving anymore. The only problem was that Pyrrha didn't want to tell him that. Probably wanting to shield him from the cold truth.

It's funny, really.

He's not mad at her for never telling him. How could he be? She's still training him till this day to help him improve. She'd never given up on him. Never stopped trying to help him reach his fullest potential. Refusing to allow hopelessness to drive apart her determination. So no. He's not mad at her. He couldn't ever be mad at her. Pyrrha's too kind for such a thing.

He's mad at himself for not being able to live up to her expectations.

Frowning, Jaune leaned closer. "Pyrrha—?"

"Then you know why I don't want you to fight in the Vytal Tournament! That leader free-for-all is going to be brutal!" Jaune was forced to take a step back from her cracking voice and intense stare, even more so when she pushed him. "Those Huntsmen won't hold back! You're only going to get hurt, Jaune. I don't want to see you get hurt."

Hearing her wavering voice was simply breaking him and Jaune's forced to comfort her.

"Hey! C'mon, I'm not going to get hurt in the tournament." She glared accusingly at his grin. "Okay, fine! Maybe I _will_ get hurt. But you should of all people know that pain is a part of this game we play as Huntsmen!" Pyrrha turned her back to him; not having any of this, and Jaune only rolled his eyes. When did he become the mature one in this partnership? He moved in front of her. "Look? What's the worst that can happen?"

Jaune felt like he's digging himself into a grave here. Those words should never be said together. He honestly knew what the worst case was, but unless he could guarantee the safety of his transcripts, he's forced take chances. His future here at Beacon depended on it— _his future_.

Moving closer, Jaune gently shook his partner by the shoulders. "Pyrrha?"

Finally looking up, Pyrrha quietly slipped into Jaune's personal bubble, glad that her partner was slightly taller than her. "Why are you so determined to fight in this tournament?" Her voice was so small and meek, not like her at all. He hated it. "Why?"

Jaune Arc wished he could answer that. He truly did. But if Pyrrha was taking it this bad for his lack of improvement in training and her feelings of weakness to protect him, who knew how she'd react to the possible discovery of his fake transcripts and eventual expulsion?

He wouldn't let her deal with that, not Nora, Ren, or Pyrrha. Not if he could help it.

Besides, he'd his new amazing Aura skills, those should even the playing field. And Jaune knew he's way better with Excalibur against a Grimm than with Crocea Mors. He even had Shooting Star and the unnamed Aura ball to back him up. All he had to do was show her, today, during Professor Goodwitch's combat class. Then she'd see she didn't have to worry about him. She'd see a leader that was worthy of protecting his teammates.

Grinning, Jaune wrapped her in a one arm hug. "Because, that's the reason I came to Beacon, to get stronger and become a Huntsmen like my ancestors before me. But how am I going to become a Huntsmen if I run away from every challenge that I'm force to face with?"

Jaune's relieved to find a good amount of truth there.

He's getting so tired of lying to his friends and teammates. It's been eating away at him for such a long time now and he could almost feel the negative emotions starting to affect his life. Lying's practically become everything to the young Arc. Monty Oum! Even his first steps into Beacon were nothing but a lie—a deep, dark, terrible lie.

If nothing else, he needed to prove that he belonged here at Beacon. Just to make it the truth. And maybe, just maybe, he wanted to be able to call himself a leader worth leading Team JNPR.

Looking back down at Pyrrha, Jaune smiled warmly at the one person who's been there through each of his hardships. She didn't deserve any of this.

Jaune let her go, flicking his smile on full force. "So you understand now, Pyrrha? I gotta do this."

She nodded, finally getting it, but her heart still wasn't in it. "I understand, Jaune. But I don't like it. That leader free-for-all is going to be dangerous. You _need_ to get stronger! You need to!" Agreeing, Jaune looked at his palm, easily channeling Aura, but not forming a ball.

Seriously! He needed to give the Aura ball a new name. Something cool—eh? He'd worry about that later. Now's not the time to worry over such trivial nonsense. He already had Shooting Star and Excalibur. And now's definitely not the time. Still, he'd become stronger. No! He'd _already_ gotten stronger! He just needed a little more time to prove it.

"Trust me, Pyrrha!" Flashing her yet another signature Nora move, Jaune gave Pyrrha a perfect thumbs up. "I will! I will get stronger! And I'll win! I'll prove to you that I'm no longer weak."

Unable to stop her wavering smile, she reluctantly accepted the fact that there's no way to convince their Fearless Leader to _not_ fight in the tournament. "Fine... okay... I believe you. And you were never weak."

 _Beep_! _Beep_!

Hearing the bell, the duo realized it's time to head to Professor Goodwitch's combat class. And Jaune didn't even get a say in the matter when Pyrrha started pushing him toward their next destination, glad for a moment to forget about the Vytal Tournament. Distractions were thy ally.

"C'mon, Fearless Leader. You're not going to be _almost_ late this time."

Darn! His evil plan! Foiled!

* * *

 **Author Notes:** Edited: **11/05/2017**


	5. Ash

**Disclaimer:** I own nothing of RWBY.

* * *

 **Ash**

 **By: Imyoshi**

Combat class—Jaune Arc's greatest foe.

Only today they'd become comrades in arms. That's _if_ he played his cards right.

Entering the classroom, Jaune scanned the room with Pyrrha beside him, finding themselves the first ones there, even before Professor Goodwitch. Made somewhat sense since they had been roaming the halls while everyone else had been inside the Mess Hall, but the Arc figured teachers to hanging about in their classrooms. And he'd be lying if he didn't feel a tad indifferent about their encounter. Feelings and talks that finally needed to happen had happened. Now where the next step decided to take them was left to chance.

Pushing aside their talk, they move toward the end of the class, already hearing the other Huntsmen-in-Training entering the room as well. Jaune barely took a seat before in came Nora, a hyper ticking time bomb of energy with Ren following right behind her. Nora's laughing at some random thing Ren must've said, clueless to how loud she truly was. Although, there's a chance he said something serious and Nora saw it as a joke. Wouldn't be the first time.

Upon spotting them, Nora instantly waved and pointed at Pyrrha and Jaune before grabbing Ren by the sleeve, rushing toward the pair in an endless vigor. Ren didn't even get a say in the matter—he never did—and was promptly pushed into a seat with Nora tagging behind him, grinning mischievously while her fingers began to dig into his flawless strands.

"Nora?" Ren bent his head back, ignoring her innocent smile. "What are you doing?"

"Nothing! Now put your head back!" she forced him to comply, fixing his head into place, and Nora's already back to playing with the bangs of his hair, occasionally flicking some for fun. "I wonder how your hair would look if I made it look like Weiss's? Have you ever wondered that?" Or course not. "Let's see what it'll look like!"

Having forgotten all about the Vytal Tournament, thanks to Nora's distraction, Jaune sat idly by his team, feet hanging on a nearby seat. Aura's already being focused throughout his muscles and his body reacted accordingly to the boost. Silently, he enjoyed the way Nora played with Ren's hair, and grinned when Pyrrha futilely tried to stop her with Ren making absolutely no attempt to stop either of them, content to letting the Valkyrie miss with his precious bangs.

Team JNPR at its finest.

Glancing down to the arena, Jaune didn't exactly know why, but he felt like today was going to be more life-changing than he previously thought. The feeling of foreshadowing settled deep in his chest. Like a calm before the storm type of deal—instinct gripping and hair rising. It irked him was what he's trying to convey.

Dropping the looming feeling for now, Jaune impatiently drummed his fingers on his forearm, waiting for Professor Goodwitch to enter. For once, he wanted to actually fight during combat class, more than ready to impress his fellow peers and onlookers with his Aura skills. He's practically ready to volunteer to go first at this point! The Arc would take on anybody, even Yang. Not to say he would want to fight her, he's just that tempted to.

Suffice to say, Jaune Arc's a little excited. Very excited. Borderline Nora Valkyrie level excited.

Going over a list of cool, flashy ideas to do when he planned to reveal his Aura based techniques, Jaune's thoughts stop completely when he felt a sudden force of invisible weight pressing down upon him, virtually shrouding him in a wealth of power. The power itself was neither suffocating nor heavy, but he felt it bearing down on him nonetheless. Like an invisible weight of water surrounding him in each possible direction.

Before he could turn around and question if his teammates felt that, Professor Goodwitch stepped into the class, and the sudden force got stronger. And if Jaune actually looked closely enough, he could see a thin outline of violet Aura hanging close to Professor Goodwitch, looking partially unstable from a first glance.

Well now? This was new.

Watching Professor Goodwitch silently enter the room, the sudden force started to lessen and Jaune could only honestly guess all _this_ had something to do with her emotions. Because she looked vivid. And he was probably the only one to come to that conclusion as no one else seemed to be affected by the sudden pressure, or even take real notice that their professor entered the room.

Oh yea, this was definitely new and Jaune didn't know what to make of it. But based on the way Professor Goodwitch took a hard look across the entire class, he figured with the best of his abilities, that it had something to do with the professor's Aura. Or what he assumed was her Aura, no other logical choices made sense otherwise. Of course it's all a guess on his point, lacking any real evidence to make that assumption. However, by guessing on the way their professor was pinching the bridge of her nose and his control over Aura, he's sort of right.

Jaune quietly hummed in his seat, no longer focusing on his Aura too much, paying close attention to how composed Professor Goodwitch was getting. Even more so on how no one in the combat room seemed to notice the sudden shift in the air. Her Aura just kept getting less unstable with every second she calmed down before it just vanished completely.

Weird.

How strange? Apparently, he'd accidentally discovered something new here with Aura. The only question was _why_? Why now? Of all of the times for this happen, why did it have to be now?

Going into Aura obsession mode, Jaune stealthily attempted to look bored, but his eyes had hardened as he focused on the professor more intently. Nothing happened when he concentrated, and Jaune's starting to wonder if his extreme paranoia was behind this. But the Arc knew he felt a pressure of weight on him when the professor walked in. Something like that didn't just up and vanish. Things didn't just come and go without reason. There's always an underlining point to be found.

A few minutes pass and he still couldn't feel a thing. Maybe it really had all been in his head? Some silly fantasy his ill-fed mind conjured up to punish him for skipping lunch. Perhaps in doing so proved to be one of his weaker ideas? Maybe Ren might have some of those nasty health bars on him? On second thought, Jaune's perfectly fine starving.

"Miss Valkyrie and Mr. Sky! Please proceed to the arena." Glynda ordered, pulling Jaune from his Aura based thoughts. "You'll be the first spar of the day."

Distracted, Jaune mentally sighed, falling back into his seat with a weak grin. Damn it. All his testing and observations made him forget to volunteer—!

 _Pressure_!

His eyes widen cosmically as the same power from before—although not as powerful—overcame him in another blanket of pressure. Sitting up, he felt the familiar weight bearing down on him from every angle. Then, from the corner of his eye, there's a subtle glow of turquoise Aura next to him that pulled in all of his attention. And all it took was a small shift of his eyes to see the spectacle, and it's instantly clear at what or _whom_ was making that power.

Nora?

She's out of her seat, Magnhild out and ready to deliver pain. "Time to break some legs!" Her Aura responded crazily, covering her entire body in a fabric of nonsense. She then crouched in her seat, gripping Magnhild tightly and lunged forward. "Watch me, Ren!"

Not like Ren had much a choice, and when did she already grab her weapon?! What's the point of weapon's lockers if everyone just carried around their weapons?

Amazed, Jaune couldn't keep his eyes off Nora as she landed down in the arena, saluting to her fellow teammates. Excitedly, she spun the hammer in her hands for good balance and even sat on the head of Magnhild to await Sky to get down there as well.

The entire time, the pressure she made had slowly started to die down, eventually settling to vanish altogether, but if Jaune just tried hard enough, he could barely feel some sort of power coming from her. Not being suppressed but guarded closely to her body. Almost like a suit of armor.

Stunned that he wasn't going crazy, he kept staring at Nora, trying to figure out _what_ he was sensing. Force of habit dictated he reach for his Aura journal he kept stashed in his bag for such an occasion, but before he could pull it out and take notes, he felt yet another wave of pressure occupy the space around him, not as strong as Nora's though.

"... What?"

Turning around, he could see Sky, from Team CRDL, unleashing his own wave of pressure. And by his narrowed vision, Sky's Aura had more of a grey ashy color than anything else. The Aura waved hazily around him in a mist like form, acting a lot like smoke.

Closing his eyes slightly, Jaune thinned his lips in absolute concentration.

Seriously! What was going on here?!

Calling his weapon's locker and grabbing his halberd, Sky, as calmly as possible, walked down toward the arena, silently fearing for his legs. Everyone knew that area was Nora Valkyrie's point of attack and she never disappointed in aiming there. Meanwhile, Jaune sat on the edge of his seat, all thoughts of fighting pushed completely aside. This new discovery of Aura, he'd accidentally made, was far too important to ignore. At least he was hoping it had to do with Aura and that he wasn't just stepping into a realm of Nora level of insanity. There's no turning back once someone hit that stage.

Pulling out his Aura notebook, Jaune scribbled down some quick notes, eyes fixated on the two fighters below the arena. It's only when Professor Goodwitch said _begin_ did both their armors of Aura expand, creating in terms a unique _space_ of pressure.

Actually, he kind of liked that name.

Space!

That's what he'd call this strange phenomenon.

Writing a few notes, along with the strange phenomena's name, Jaune spent the next few minutes watching the fight between Sky and Nora take place. He quickly wrote down all the things he could observe and interpret. Like how when it came to pushing the other back with physical force, whoever dished out more Space usually won that battle. Not to say it always ended up like that, but the majority of the time it did.

Jaune also observed that the more they fought, the less Space they were able to use. After a certain point, he noticed their Aura armor and the Aura monitor in the class were definitely linked, especially when either of them took a direct hit from the other's attacks. Both the armor chipped away and so did their Aura on the meter.

Fascinating!

Jaune still didn't quite understand what he was writing about, but he discovered he became very use to their Space in no time. Like Aura, there wasn't any real gravity affecting him like how Aura had no real gravity to call its own, but he could feel it upon him nonetheless. The weight's everywhere and nowhere. Scattered around every corner in the room but affecting nothing it touched. Such a mystery alluded poor Jaune as he struggled to make sense of a concept only he could feel, observe, and interact.

Stuck writing and blind to the world around him, Jaune failed to notice the other two members of Team JNPR staring at his odd behavior, finding it exceptionally strange for him to be writing notes down in his notebook during class. Pyrrha could vaguely recall Jaune ever having _that_ notebook, but Ren's a little more perceptive. He'd at very least seen his Fearless Leader write more than once in that journal between classes.

Alas, Ren decided to ignore his leader's quirky habits and peer back down to watch Nora fight. If he'd learned anything from his hectic life with Nora, added with a few months of living with Team JNPR, Jaune would tell them eventually. Pyrrha, on the other hand, looked a bit worried at Jaune's stranger behavior. Normally, Jaune wouldn't be this into taking notes, at least not as frivolously. And the one class he actually bothered doing so, turned out to be the class that required no note taking whatsoever.

Nothing wasn't adding up.

Grabbing Jaune by the shoulder, she stole his attention, and despite herself, smiled. "Jaune? What are you doing?"

Pulled away from his notes, Jaune found all the words in his mouth stuck. He didn't know exactly how to explain this situation to them. Couldn't exactly give away his secret Aura notebook. Not yet at least. Nope!

"Taking notes?" Good job mouth. Tell them e _xactly_ what's going on.

"I can see that..." There's a hint of humor in her voice. "But why?"

Jaune's eyes zoom between Pyrrha and Nora, who's trying to smash Sky's legs into a bunch of bite-size pieces, looking for last minute inspiration. This happened a few times with the cry _my legs_ ringing somewhere in the background, and the occasional low magnitude earthquake from Nora's hammer passing unmovable judgment.

Ah! What the hell! Wing it!

"As team leader... I thought it would be good idea to see how Nora fights for the upcoming Vytal Tournament." Sounds reasonable enough. "You know... I gotta make some killer strategies so the other teams won't know what hit them. That's my job as the team leader and all! So I was thinking of some team combination attacks!"

The little things start to eat away at Jaune's soul, like his striking realization of his ability to lie to his teammates with a straight face. A feeling pooled at the center of his chest, aching his pride in more ways than one. He hated the feeling. Lying went against the Arc word and code. Not only that, but he's also realizing that his lie was actually an awesome idea for the Vytal Tournament.

Team combination attacks!

Those would be perfect! He'd better start working on those soon! Maybe even start thinking of team names. Like maybe Ren and Nora could be called Flower Power or Renora? Well, okay, Renora sounded boring as in the sense he didn't even try to come up with a catchy name for the pair. Still, such things eluded him as his mind raced.

Pushing that aside for now, Jaune could see the hesitant wince when he mentioned the Vytal Tournament to Pyrrha, but didn't think too much out of it. He already understood her problem with him and fighting. But it's not like he wanted to, he's just forced to. Best to leave that problem for later.

"Oh..." she whispered, looking away with a strained smile. "That's good. Keep it up, Jaune."

Jaune's about to add something more, but before he could, he felt a sudden spike of Space in the room. Strangely—without the need to turn around—he instinctively knew it was Nora's. There's a certain _charge_ in her Aura he couldn't properly explain or fathom in simple words. Of course no one else in the room seemed to have the noticed the sudden force of pressure. Totally clueless to the phenomena that Jaune Arc's been cursed to feel.

The sudden rise of Space came crashing down as Jaune turned to see Nora deliver a fierce swing of her mighty hammer to the poorly defended side of Sky. There's a distinct _crunching_ noise in the background, and through some straining effort, Jaune could see Sky's Aura armor dimly lit where Nora had landed her blow. His Aura's barely hanging in there. Almost gone, flickering really, in the midst of the battle.

"Alright! That's enough!" Professor Goodwitch walked up the arena, signaling the match. "Victory goes to Miss Valkyrie. Mr. Lark! I recommend you head to the infirmary." Sky Lark didn't argue and silently left with a wince in his step.

Nora grinned, waving to her opponent. "Look on the bright side! You're legs are still working!"

Technically with Nora that was a bright side.

Observing her Space, Jaune could feel the force dwindling down as she jumped for joy, no longer stuck in the heat of battle. Every step she took running up the stairs, diminished her Space until nothing was left. By the time she sat down, Jaune couldn't feel her Space any longer or see her Aura, both gone without a trace. All he bore witness to was Nora's need to mess with Ren's hair, and Pyrrha's fruitless attempts to stop her.

"Okay! Time for the next match." Glynda hummed, pulling a list on her scroll. "Hn? Mr. Lie Ren and Miss Rose. How about it?"

Glynda didn't even need a conformation from Ruby as a trail of rose petals swirled excessively in the arena and focused heavily on one spot, nor did Jaune as he felt her Space instantly, weaker than what he would've imagined Ruby to be. During the time, he noted her layer of ruby to crimson colored Aura, jotting down said note with hungry knowledge. And while Nora's Aura had been static and wild, Ruby's was more flowing and foamy. It's interesting to say the least. So far no two Auras looked the same.

Looking over his shoulder, Jaune, and everyone else, waited for Ren to make his choice.

"C'mon! Ren!" Nora grinned cheerfully, laughing and frantically messing with his hair. "Show everyone what the mighty Sloth King can do!"

"Sloth King?" Ren stood, ruffling up her own hair and fixing his in one clean swoop. "I'm pretty sure I'm not the king of anything, Nora. Very less of sloths."

"Aw!" she pouted, kicking her legs out. "But that'd be so amazing! Can't you at least pretend to be the Sloth King?"

"Nora—?"

"Mr. Lie Ren?" Glynda interrupted, hiding her slightly amused smile. To think she thought these two wouldn't be able to function as partners. "Are you fighting or not? Miss Rose is waiting."

Ruffling up Nora's hair one more time, Ren calmly walked down the stairs of the class, calling his weapon locker in the process. Inside, he reached in and pulled StormFlower out, mentally preparing himself to fight Ruby. Throughout the whole ordeal, Jaune took note of how unlike Nora's, Sky's, or even Ruby's Aura and Space, his steadily climbed up in force and didn't spring up all at once. Eventually, his force actually trumped that of Nora's with his pink Aura wrapping around him in a calm shade of armor.

Jaune's starting to observe he could only feel this _Space_ when someone was actively using their Aura. He couldn't feel anyone else's except Ren's and Ruby's. And he noted that Aura seemed to be connected emotionally, if all five displays had been anything to go by. The only question plaguing his mind was why now? Why was he starting to feel others Auras now?

"Begin!" Glynda signaled, watching Ruby vanish in a rose of petals.

Concentrating on his own Aura, Jaune began feeling a more in-depth touch for Ren and Ruby's Aura. Going so far as being able to tell the two apart, he could even slightly follow Ruby's path that she's running in, tracing behind the crimson blur. Which, honestly, he shouldn't be able to do at all! Never before had he managed to keep up with Ruby by simple glance.

Lowering his concentration on his Aura, the more in-depth feeling dwindled down and he couldn't follow— _feel_ Ruby running all over the place, anymore. The Space still assaulted him from every direction, just not as powerful. A lack of focus for better words.

"Hn?" Jaune scratched the side of his chin, again focusing his Aura. He grinned acutely. "This is interesting. This is also weird, but still interesting."

Again, he felt Ruby running and slightly guessed how much power Ren was going to dish out on her when he had a clear shot. Jaune then increased his Aura control exponentially and discovered he couldn't _exactly_ keep up with Ruby's speed or Ren's movements, but he could guess what they're next moves would've been by deep instinct. Space allowed essentially for him to feel a person's Aura and gauge a proper response to their movements. It's an odd discovery to unearth. One he planned to practice as time went on. But for now, there's another idea he wanted to try out.

Completely forgoing his Aura control—Jaune felt nothing. No Space. No pressure. And no Aura coming from either Ren or Ruby. He couldn't even see their Aura anymore. Everything's back to normal and right again in the world. Just two teenagers fighting each other to prove who's the superior.

Putting his Aura journal away, Jaune decided to just watch this fight between Ruby and Ren and control the Space around them when he focused just a little on his Aura, content to writing in Doctor Oobleck's class. Thoughts of how he'd discovered such a technique grabbed him, testing the limits of his Aura knowledge to the fullest. Pushing what he considered normal to another breaking point.

Maybe?

Maybe it's because he'd never actually tried using Aura around others? And the very few times he had, fighting wasn't exactly on the table at the time. It would make sense with training with Pyrrha since he never actively used his Aura during those spars, offhandedly knowing it'd be a waste. Crocea Mors always ended up completely destroying his Aura concentration during spars, and when he learned of the sword's ability to disrupt Aura control, Jaune plainly stopped. Even during normal combat classes with Professor Goodwitch, Jaune had chosen to use Crocea Mors, all the more disrupting his Aura control, never actually allowing him to sense any presence of anything before.

Who knew how long he could've been doing this?

It's all a theory of course.

Watching his two friends spar, Jaune wondered how he could use this to his advantage in fights. Craziness aside, being able to sort of predict and read opponents' movements sounded as unfair as he made it out to be. Even then, he's not entirely sure if that's Space's doing or simple Aura reflexes kicking in. Could turn out to be his Aura allowing him to follow Ruby's path and guess where she'd move to next.

Hard to say.

"Go, Ren!" Nora yelled as she bounced in her seat. Where did she get that flag with Ren's name on it? "You can do it! Aim for her legs! That's her weak spot!"

"Isn't that everyone's weak spot?" Jaune poked, finding another flag with Ren's name on it being pushed into his hand from a _shushing_ Nora.

"Shush! Ren's fighting!"

Pyrrha and Jaune stared at the flag in Jaune's hand, blinking innocently. Their Fearless Leader then shrugged, waving the flag alongside Nora with an equally large grin. Technically, Nora's right. Ruby's weak spot was her legs. Having a super-speed Semblance did make targeting them the utmost priority in a spar. A weakness Ren couldn't exactly exploit due to his weapon's design. Nevertheless! His friend needed all the support he could get. And Jaune liked the flag Nora pressed into his chest.

"Go, Ren!"

Hearing them supporting their team member, Team RWBY yelled equally as loud, except Blake, for Ruby to win the fight. Yang even somehow found a T-shirt with _Go Ruby_! sprawled across the center in child-like writing.

Seriously? Where were they getting these items?

Down below, Ren narrowly missed a swing from Ruby's scythe, back flipping away before she could retaliate with another deadly swing. He's then forced to bring up StormFlower in a defensive stance, arms crossed in a sheath, when Ruby used her super-speed to crash right into him, sliding the duo across the arena floor in a force of speed. Speed was weight and weight was power. Two things Ren understood very well with his lithe body. Maybe even more than Ruby, who's simply swinging her weapon in impressive arcs, but not fully utilizing her incredible speed to the fullest.

During their small clash, he lightly tapped Crescent Rose on the barrel of where the rifle sat at, pushing some of his Aura into it. Something that didn't go unnoticed by Jaune and Nora, but everyone else remained blind. Nora, for she knew exactly what Ren was doing. Jaune, for he could literally see some of Ren's pink Aura crammed into the handle of Crescent Rose. The glow's a beacon in contrast to Ruby's Aura.

"Oh!" Nora whisper-yelled, fidgeting in her seat even more. "This is going to be so awesome!"

Pyrrha turned, frown present. "What's going to be awesome?"

Nora only grinned in response, waving her mini-flag faster. "You'll see!"

Pyrrha didn't see what Nora meant, but Jaune sure did. He watched it all unfolded with his very Aura sensitive eyes. Jumping away from Ruby, Ren unloaded a round of Dust ammunition upon her, focused on pushing her to the limit. Meanwhile, Ruby used her super-speed to dodge the incoming hail of iron, appearing behind Ren and taking aim with her high-caliber sniper-rifle, fully intent on taking a big chunk of his Aura out.

 _Click_!

Her rifle didn't fire.

"What—?"

Ren's already on her before she could figure out what happened. Using one of his StormFlowers to push and hold Ruby's weapon down, blade sickle to snath, he used the other to aim directly at Ruby's frozen head. All the while, one of his feet had been used to hold down Crescent Rose and the other to steady himself on the mass of metal, adding another layer of weight. There's a distinct cheering going on in the background that Ren just knew came from Nora, and a tiny smile blossomed on his usual stoic features. Then he bumped Ruby on the noggin with StormFlower, signalling her defeat.

"Winner, Lie Ren!" Glynda announced, calling the match.

"What did Ren do?" Jaune asked Nora, still seeing Ren's pink Aura in Crescent Rose.

"Sorry, Fearless Leader!" Nora chimed, zipping her lips. "That's a secret!" Tilting his head, Jaune shrugged harmlessly, waving the Ren flag once more with a sense of ironic pride.

Fair enough.

Freeing her weapon, Ren calmly stepped away from Ruby with the intent to relax after the spar. Sometimes, when he's given time to think, he wondered what he's doing at Beacon. Why did he want to become a Huntsmen again? Way too much work for this man. Sleep sounded way better. Wasting energy just wasn't something he liked doing. Never had been.

Walking up the stairs, Ren could hear Ruby looking over her weapon, undeniably a pout on her lips. "Aww! Somehow Crescent Rose's firing mechanism got jammed!" She grumbled, stomping her adorable legs. "I just tuned her last night! How did this happen?"

 _Click_! _Click_! _Click_!

Hearing Ruby configure her weapon in the arena, Ren calmly called back his Aura from her scythe, feeling a lot more of his strength returning. Too bad it didn't make him any less tired. Control over his Aura always put a strain on his soul.

How troublesome.

 _Click_! _Click_! _Boom_!

Now Crescent Rose was working.

"Hey! It's working fine now!" Ruby appeared in front of Ren before he could finish walking up the stairs, rose petals and all. She pulled stubbornly at his sleeve. "I want a rematch!"

Calmly pulling his sleeve free, Ren slowly poked Ruby on the forehead with a smile that seemed oddly sarcastic. Of course that couldn't the case since Ren wasn't that type of person. And who would believe her word over his, anyways?

"Maybe next time."

They both already knew there's not going to be a next time. Not as long as he could help it. And Ruby looked sad for a moment, but then she ran over to Yang, hiding behind her amused sister's shoulder, glaring lightly at the retreating Ren with Crescent Rose resting firmly at her side. She'd even gone as far as to hide inside her hood with a low growl that's both adorable and a little nerve-racking. The stoic ninja blinked, thinking for the smallest margin of second that he'd mistakenly made a rival by sheer _bad luck_.

Nora's going to get so angry after she's done laughing.

Forgetting and overlooking Ruby's lovable glare, Ren found his seat in front of Nora again, already feeling Nora's fingers in his hair once more. He's not going to lie; it's pretty relaxing once Nora reached deep enough into his roots.

"You won, Ren!" she laughed, trying again to fashion Ren's hair to look like Weiss's. "This calls for a celebration! Let's go to Vale! Pancakes on Jaune!"

"What?!"

"I would like pancakes, too." Pyrrha added, enjoying Jaune's sigh of defeat.

"Pancakes do sound good." Ren lightly smirked.

Jaune looked appalled at being made the team's pancake maker. His sight then focused on the guilty Nora, whose face threatened to split in half from her child-like grin. So help him, he's really itching to ban pancakes. It'd be so easy, too.

"Fine." Accepting his Fate, he waved the remark offhandedly, already wondering how on what ingredients were used to make pancakes. Were eggs involved? How about milk? Did Nora want him to buy the pancakes? "But only for tomorrow. I'm not making squat today."

Nora hummed happily in her seat, nodding her head to the side while tying some of Ren's hair off to his left, finally finishing the last touches to Ren's hair makeover. Pyrrha had long since abandoned her quest at trying to stop her, content to letting their mad teammate do whatever it was she felt like. She's more interested at how easily Nora's gotten Jaune to fold. Perhaps she had _both_ Jaune and Ren wrapped around her trigger-happy finger?

Pyrrha's needed know where she learned that.

Before long, Ren's hair's fashioned to look like Weiss's, although far shiner and with thicker bangs. His pink strand of hair was put to better use, curling to the side like Weiss's hair did. His stoic appearance only helped heightened the mirroring. And Ren always did have this calm, perfect-posture manner.

"All done!" Nora cheered, attracting Team RWBY's attention.

Yang nudged Weiss on the shoulder. "He makes a better Weiss than you do, Weiss." Yang's comment cut across the room, grinning like a Cheshire cat with Ruby nodding alongside her sister.

"Shut up!"

Disregarding the bickering between Team RWBY and the dark, ominous raincloud that formed over Weiss Schnee, Glynda flipped through her scroll, looking for another match. Eventually, she got a little lazy and settled to hit the random button.

What? Nobody had to know. No one's perfect.

 _Beep_!

"Hn? Interesting?" she mused, forcing herself _not_ to tilt her head. This match should be different. "Miss Belladonna and Miss Xiao Long, are you two up to fight?" Wasn't really a question.

"Oh yea!" Yang roared, thumbs up, already having her weapons locked and loaded. Time to show everyone who's the boss! "C'mon, Blakey! I'm gonna kick your sorry butt!"

Blake merely rolled her eyes, grabbing the weapon tied to her back. She pulled Gambol Shroud free, twisting the katana upright into her wrist, thinking of many strategies to throw her partner off-guard. Maybe a sneak attack from behind? A frontal assault? Yang didn't really have many openings she could exploit while getting some sort of backlash in exchange. Kind of the give and take system someone had to deal with when fighting Yang Xiao Long.

Meanwhile, across the room, Jaune's noting Yang's flaring Aura and Space. Her Aura's practically alive with its never ending burning and lashing. Her Space was impressive, too. Blake, though, had yet to concentrate on her Aura. A conundrum for the Arc. He would love to see Blake's Aura. He's half expecting it to me tame and a shade of amber, like her eyes.

Jumping from the rail and landing gracefully, Yang pumped herself up, throwing a few one-two combo jabs into the air for practice. She's light on her feet and the Aura around her had compressed itself into a burning shield like everyone else's. The only notable difference Jaune could see was that her Aura seemed way more active than everyone's. More energized and outgoing. Like a constantly burning fire in the dark.

Taking the stairs like a normal person, Blake walked calmly across the arena, concentrating on what Jaune could see to be violet Aura. Her bow twitched at the aspect of a fight and her hands tightly gripped down on Gambol Shroud, knowing full well that Yang wasn't going to hold back. Throwing half-powered punches wasn't her game. Yang's going to go all out.

Jaune could help but stare at her Space and Aura with a lost expression. Her Space wa strong, nothing he didn't expect, but her Aura had something bizarre. Compared to everyone else's Aura—as far as he'd seen in this class—her Aura's way different. Livelier, and then not? No matter how he looked at it, there's a certain flare that sparked in her Aura. In a way, she's like Ren.

Cool and composed.

But then again, she wasn't, at least not entirely.

For someone who's calm and collective, Jaune's surprised at her wild Aura. It almost seemed like she _wanted_ to fight. Even if Blake did not look like she wanted to fight, period. Jaune's sort of reminded of animal waiting to pounce on their prey, silent before the strike.

"Are you two ready?" Two nods, both different. "Very well, begin!"

Watching them square off, Yang's the first to move, fist out, lock, loaded and all blond. Blake, during her partner's run, had unsheathed her weapon, dual-wielding. She silently prepared for Yang's incoming attack, sliding her foot back to prepare for the tremendous force her partner carried.

Yang didn't disappoint, hitting the blunt of the edge of Blake's weapon with her fist, forcing the girl back with a mild shock wave. Her other fist was already heading for a direct course toward Blake's exposed stomach during the scuffle, power and content fueling the strength behind it.

Countering her attack, Blake momentarily let go of her sheath in order to twist the metal between her fingers in order to block the incoming hit. She managed the maneuver and used that momentum to retreat back, getting a good amount of distance away from Yang.

"Not bad, partner!" Yang readied her gauntlets again, feeling the burn. "Now that we're warmed up! I hope you're ready to get serious!"

Blake flipped the weapons in her hands, ready to counter like her life depended on it. Because when fighting against Yang, it sometimes did. "Ready."

The grin on Yang's face couldn't get any larger if she tried, and she dashed forward, arm out. Blake took two steps forward before dashing as well, bow twitching. Her instincts were getting to her, in a good way.

Stuck in the stands, Jaune's noted how each time Yang's Aura armor took a hit from Blake's slashes and kicks, the Space she's emitting kept increasing in force, but her actual Aura's glowing less dim by the hits. Yet, her Aura may have been taking one hell of a pounding from Blake's superior speed, the Space just kept rising in such a rate that each and every one of Yang's punches pushed Blake and her Aura meter further back each and every time.

Speaking of Blake's Aura, the Aura around her head had an unusual shape. Unlike a sphere of Aura covering her head, like a dome with some minor Aura characteristic, there was that _and_ a pair of weirdly shaped triangles that twitched every few seconds into the fight.

Jaune had no idea what to make of that.

He only got further lost when Blake vanished in a shadow, dodging Yang's uppercut to the face. Even though he could clearly see Blake a few feet away from Yang, Jaune still saw some of her Aura's residue left behind in that shadow clone of hers, right to the moment it died. Then Blake did it again, vanishing in a shadow, reappearing to the side, and then switching places with her duplicate shadow to both avoid Yang's fist and counter.

Like a waltz, Blake danced around Yang's punches, getting her fury to rise as a side effect. Of course nobody could really see that with her reflexives, speed, and Yang's explosive fists, using the immense amount of smoke from Yang's attacks to hide. But Jaune did, sort of. The smoke couldn't entirely hide Blake's shadow or her presence. It glowed through the floating dust like a beacon. And he noted that Blake never switched with any clone that ran out of Aura.

Back down in the arena, Yang was slowly getting angry. Her partner's Semblance was hard to deal with, she never knew which Blake was the real one. Such an inconvenient Semblance for a fist-fighter. Her fist gripped tighter in concentration, hoping to land one more blow on her bookworm of a partner.

Feeling her Semblance giving her strength, Yang concentrated on Blake's quick movements, intercepting a swipe from her katana with her gauntlet, firing her weapon to push Blake back. Yang then used her other hand to hit the blade downwards, knocking Blake's concentration and disarming one of her weapons. The jerk motion was all she needed to make a comeback.

Grinning into her next strike, she's aiming to land any strike on Blake's body, only to find her fist hitting a shadow again. It took the subtle breeze in her hair for her to know that Blake's flickered behind her, probably trying to neutralize her movements.

Not this time!

Hoping to backlash her fist back and to use the momentum to stun her partner, her wrist was instead caught from an uncomfortable angle, and a blade was pressed to her back almost mockingly. Then, to add insult to injury, Blake chuckled only loud enough for her to hear.

No doubt about it, Yang's totally going to get Zwei to lick Blake's stuff again.

"Match..." Glynda called, frustrated at the amount of damage Yang caused, again. "Miss Belladonna wins."

Sheathing her weapon, Blake calmly pulled Yang's shoulder. "C'mon. It was a good fight."

"Yea, yea..." Yang mumbled, acting very childish, arms crossed for a quick moment. "You and those darn shadow clones are so hard to hit."

Blake allowed the smallest of smiles to appear/ "And you hit hard. Let's call it even."

Unable to stay too mad at her ninja-y partner, Yang slapped the girl on the back, leading her back to their team with a glaring Ruby—poor Ren—and a distracted Weiss who kept stroking her hair slowly, lightly glaring at Ren from time to time from over her shoulder. Damn Ren! Poor guy just couldn't win.

Not noticing both Ruby and Weiss glaring at his fellow male, Jaune's busy thinking over what he'd seen so far. Ren's mysterious power, probably his super-secret Semblance no doubt, Blake's strange Aura shape and her Semblance, Yang's Space increase from her Aura taking damage, which was code for more Semblance talk, and even Ruby's super-speed. So far the Arc's only gained a small bit of understanding when it came to this strange new Aura power he had. So far he'd only figured out that he needed to be concentrating his on his own Aura in order to feel Space, and vice-versa for the other party, and that he could lightly note how their Semblances and Aura work together through simple observation and knowledge alone.

It's all still fairly new and was in need of serious testing!

Reaching for his Aura notebook—!

 _Beep_! _Beep_!

"Hooray!" Nora yelled, bumping her fist up and knocking Jaune in the process. The slight tumble caused his notebook to fall down a few steps and into the arena. "Only one more class and then sweet freedom! After boring history, let's go do something! Oh! I know! I've always wanted to see how the chefs make pancakes! Maybe they'll make me some! Maybe they'll teach me how to make some! Ren never wants to teach me! C'mon, lazy butts!"

Before anyone could even attempt to stop her, Nora's off already, skipping almost. Ren sighed, fixing his hair back, and calmly left to go catch her, wondering if they would actually make her some or teach her? Hope not. Nora's a terrible cook. Pyrrha, though wisely decided to avoid catching the bolt of lightning, instead choosing to stay and see what their Fearless Leader was up to.

"Jaune?"

"Hn?" he answered distractedly, wondering how Nora got him into these messes. Now he needed to go fetch his notebook. And he forgot to fight today. Damn Aura discoveries. Always in the way of his plans. Why couldn't life be simple and less scattered, like a linear path?

"What are your plans after history?"

That's a great question.

What were his plans for today? He did plan to reveal his Aura powers today, but that plan got stabbed in the heart when he discovered Space. Looked like tomorrow would have to do. He also distinctly remembered Weiss saying something about asking— _forcing_ —her team to go to Vale to celebrate the upcoming Vytal Festival. And judging by the way she was practically dragging them toward the door, she wanted to leave, now.

Maybe he could possibly tag along?

Then again, he really wanted to test out Space more. And maybe practice some more at Emerald Forest before it got dark. His Aura training had been lacking for the most part. Blake's intervention and occupation of their team's room had made him give up precious time to learn grow, and mature.

"I don't know..." he finally answered, eyeing where his notebook had fallen. Then he bent back and smiled up at her. "You got something?"

"No..." Remembering where their overly hyper teammate had run off, she had a bad feeling come over her if something wasn't done to stop Nora after history. "Perhaps we _should_ go stop Nora before she destroys Professor Oobleck's classroom or worse?"

"Doctor!" Jaune corrected, smiling in a teasing way. "But sure!" Getting up, and seeing everyone but Professor Goodwitch and them gone, Jaune began walking down the steps to the arena. "I'll catch up! I just need to get some stuff."

Seeing his distracted look, Pyrrha peered over the class until she spotted a slightly stress Professor Goodwitch, looking over her scroll, and figured Jaune needed to talk to their professor about stuff. Probably based on his past combat performances? She knew he hadn't gotten much better in the past few months. And the semester was close to ending. Maybe he needed to talk about his grades?

"Okay." Pyrrha's already leaving to go catch up to Ren and Nora. "Try to hurry up before Nora finds a way to cause a mess. And don't be late to class!"

"Sure, sure! It's my dream to help clean up Nora's messes." Jaune absently waved to a retreating Pyrrha. The moment the champion exited the room, his grin vanished. "Time to get my notebook."

Walking past a distracted Professor Goodwitch, Jaune climbed down and searched a little to retrieve his notebook, eventually finding it right underneath the stairway. He's already pocketing the thing away and walking up the stairs, Aura concentrated for a small moment of practice between here and history, when Headmaster Ozpin's voice was heard.

"Glynda." Ozpin entered, shutting the door behind him, sounding usually serious. "I do hope you got my message."

Jaune's about to announce his presence, but a strong force of Space crashed down upon him, outclassing that of all his friends. It's oddly familiar to him until he slowly recalled sensing Professor Goodwitch's Space earlier. And he still didn't know how yet, but he just knew it belonged to her. Call it instinct, but Jaune felt that he could separate Aura by an invisible force that's rebounded differently between Aura users.

"Is this about the Dust explosion?" Glynda asked and Jaune's wondering if they even knew he's here?

"Precisely." Ozpin answered, and Jaune swore he heard him sip some of his beverage. "It's been confirmed that a student had attempted to cheat on their Dust exam."

There's a long silence after and Jaune's wondering what's going to happen next and questioning why he hadn't announced his presence yet. He's clearly not supposed to be here. But there's this strange force in his soul holding him back. Instinct at its purest restricted his movements, warning him to be quiet.

"Sir?" Glynda finally spoke after the long silence. There's an edge in her tone. "The student was expelled? Right?"

 _Sip_!

"Of course..." he answered with an even tone. "But that's not the problem here."

"Yes, I agree. We're going to need a new Dust lab. Should I call—?"

"No!" Ozpin cut in, sounding surprisingly sad? "No. It's not that. There's more. After being caught, their team was informed about this serious problem. And from furthering questioning, I learned that the team knew about their teammate's attempt at cheating and hadn't said or done anything to prevent it."

Silence—complete silence filled the room. Jaune almost felt like his breathing could give away his location any second now, even the loud sound of his heart beating heavily against his chest made more noise than he did. The resonance thumps in his eardrums sounded like a bad song.

"They were all expelled... weren't they?" Glynda knew already, practically unleashing a torrent of Space for Jaune to feel.

"Yes... Those are the rules. It's unfortunate, but it had to be done." There's a pause for a long sip. "Knowing and not doing anything is just as bad as a teammates holding back vital information that can compromise a mission. Any form of cheating is not tolerable here at Beacon. We cannot accept it. If we cannot trust the word of Remnant's future Huntsmen, then who can we trust? Certainly not those four individuals. A Huntsmen's word is everything in this time of peace."

"What do you need me to do, sir?"

Walking away, Ozpin headed out, needing to fill out the expulsion papers. "Nothing. I will personally handle this matter. Please, just make sure there's a new Dust class by next week. The semester's coming to an end soon. Best prepare for the transfer students."

"Right away, Ozpin."

Hearing them move away, Jaune stayed as silent as possible, not wanting to get caught. It wasn't until he heard the closing of the classroom door that he remembered to breath. And like a slap to the face, Cardin's words trap him in a stranglehold that prevented him from screaming. And Jaune slid down on the steps of the stairs, burying his head between his hands in a panicked state. His Aura's responding negatively to his uncontrollable emotions, glowing brightly in a torrent of white.

 _You know you can't just lose, right?_

"No."

 _Losing... You don't have that option._

"No!"

 _Think, Jaunie-boy! You heard what our damn Headmaster said. If you lose, they'll check your background... your name... your school... your transcripts._

"Damn it!"

Jaune felt a nasty pull in his soul from Ozpin's cursed words. Damn it, Monty! Damn it! If he was reading into this right, then that meant if they discovered his fake transcripts, then his team could get expelled alongside him! Of course they could lie and pretend they knew about his fake transcripts, but Nora couldn't keep a secret and Jaune doubted Pyrrha had a bad bone anywhere in her body to lie directly to the Headmaster's face _if_ the time for that ever came! Only Ren might be able to lie boldly to the Headmaster. And even that was stretching it.

Getting up, there's a sudden weight on Jaune's shoulders and he soon realized that it's guilt. Definitely guilt. Heart-wrenching, soul-crushing guilt that threatened to tear his soul apart in every foreseeable direction. Leaving the Arc to pick up and sew the ragged pieces back together.

Perfect.

 _They were all expelled... weren't they?_

 _Yes... Those are the rules. It's unfortunate, but it had to be done._

Feeling something akin to rage, Jaune slowly glared around the room, lazily putting away his Aura notebook. How the hell did this day suddenly take a complete one-eighty—three times! First his team got chosen for the Vytal Tournament! Then a bomb's dropped on him about his damn fake transcripts! And now he'd learned that his whole team could get expelled for _his_ fake transcripts!

"Why me? Why is this all happening to me?" Hitting his Aura fueled fist upon the wall, he came to a dangerous decision. It's not fueled by anger or sadness, but by caring and selflessness. Pulling out his scroll, he sent a message to Pyrrha. "I'm not going to class. Something came up... team meeting later. Make sure Nora knows she has to be there."

He didn't bother waiting for a response, burning with too much passion. Mad, he headed directly for Emerald Forest. For the first time since coming to Beacon, Jaune's not only skipping class, but he's actively going Grimm hunting. Hoping to find some answers and to burn off some excessive steam.

He really wished he fought in combat class today.

...

It hadn't taken too long for some Grimm to find him.

The Grimm were attracted to negative emotions and Jaune Arc had been releasing a lot of those since leaving Beacon's courtyard.

Back turned to his enemy, the poor Ursa Minor howled in pain as Jaune stabbed it through its back and out its chest with Excalibur, feeling an intense burning coming from Jaune's Aura blade. A quick kick to its back dislodged it from the sword, and the Grimm dissolved quickly enough, ash to the wind. Jaune's already focusing a couple of Aura orbs into his palm, waiting for another random Grimm to find him. So far it'd only been three Ursai who've found the Arc and met their timely demise. Not very challenging to say the least.

Jaune killed them fast, each of the Grimm falling to Excalibur's might. Granted, Ursa Minors weren't very strong to begin with, and he's driven by anger and guilt, a very dangerous combo for any person with explosive weapons at their disposal, but Jaune wanted more of a challenge. Ursai Minors only sedated his need for battle for so long. Their experience, or lack thereof, sickened him.

Feeling his Aura fueling his body and granting his muscles both strength and speed beyond his normal capabilities, Jaune prepared himself as two more Grimm jumped out the forest, one a Beowolf and the other an Ursa Minor. He didn't bother himself with the Beowulf, shooting it directly with Shooting Star, blasting it right through its chest as it got close enough. The Grimm died before even reaching Jaune, turning into ash from the crash impact.

Nothing more than a passing footnote.

The Ursa Minor, however, attempted to slash Jaune across the chest, narrowly missing the Arc by a hair's length. Jaune countered by directly firing Shooting Star at its leg, crippling and bringing down the smaller sized Ursa. The Grimm barely had time to look up from the ground before being beheaded by Excalibur, a head without a body. The cut's clean, precise, and left behind a light glow of snow that contrasted deeply with the ash of the Grimm.

Watching the Grimm dissolve didn't make Jaune feel any better. These normal Grimm didn't really compare to a Alpha, Major, or Monarch level Grimm. Sure, he shouldn't really be looking for a fight, and he'd never fought a Monarch of seen one for that matter, but it's the principle of the matter. Not only that, anger pushed him hard to find an outlet, guilt moved him to fight, pride demanded tougher Grimm, and sorrow didn't allow him to abandon his quest to fight.

What an awful cycle that tore him apart at every inconceivable edge.

Gritting his teeth, Jaune formed a fist and willed to life more Aura spheres for Shooting Star. "Darn it! It's not enough!"

If only he could just get stronger!

 _Growl_!

Turning around and glaring into the forest, Jaune narrowed his vision when a pack of Beowolves stepped out to the clearing. His heart raced, blood flowed, and skin crawled in excitement and fear. The edge of his Aura clung to his body, enhancing his muscle structure in ways only he understood. Slowly, ever so slowly, he moved Excalibur up, sinking his soul into a sea of passion.

Wish granted.

There numbers varied, ranging to at least ten, nine little ones and an Alpha Beowolf for what he figured to be the pack leader. _That_ Alpha Beowolf contained a wider area of bone plating protecting it, proving to be much larger and denser than the rest of the specimens. There's a cut lining down part of its torso, crossing its boney appendages like a nasty scar. The older Grimm even moved a lot more cautiously than the younger ones, taking slow, concise steps in order to test Jaune's withering patience. Experience drove its movements, calculating the Arc's strength with a subtle gauge.

Jaune didn't care. His Aura's already flaring up. "Finally! Something stronger!"

Carefully preparing for their attack, he's already aiming Shooting Star toward the group, hoping to get collateral damage before they all charged at once. Yet, before he could so much as fire, shaking of Remnant's earth and a loud crash of trees stole their attention. His bad luck took a turn for the worse when a Death Stalker screeched from within the forest, disregarding the lesser Grimm and heading straight for Jaune. Part of his soul's caught off-guard, frozen in place. The other half was gripping Excalibur tightly, not so weak as before.

Last time he saw a Death Stalker, it had been during initiation. Jaune remembered it well. The Grimm required four Huntsmen-in-Training to take down. He really showed his leadership skills that day, cementing his position as leader before the creature even fell.

Now he's left to deal with one on his own.

Perfect.

"Great!" Jaune growled, raising his arms up toward the advancing Grimm. Aura fueled his confidence and erased his fears. "My life can't possibly get any better. Why not give me a Nevermore while we're at?! Really make it a party!"

Aiming Shooting Star, Jaune fired hastily at the Death Stalker, hitting and slicing through one of its pincers. The Grimm howled in immense pain and quickened its pace to crush Jaune, and Team JNPR's leader didn't have time to shoot again. He's force to bring Excalibur to his side in order to avoid a direct hit from the damaged free pincer, using both arms to mirror the unstoppable force working against him.

Feet straining to remain still, the force alone sent Jaune tumbling across the forest floor, crashing into a nearby tree. Several crunching sounds came from the tree, bark bending and breaking from the high-velocity crash. But for him, it didn't hurt much and he's already getting back up—narrowly dodging an incoming pincer meant to cleave his head in two!

The Grimm's claw easily ripped through the tree, lifting it off the forest floor even in an attempt to free its trapped pincer.

Jaune used this moment to hack right beneath its exposed under belly, getting a nice, long cut across its arm and downward. Seething, the Death Stalker tried to retaliate by crushing Jaune underneath its sliced arm, but the Aura blade didn't bend beneath the force, only Jaune's legs trembled slightly. In fact, Excalibur began to cut into the Grimm's body, burning the flesh instantaneously and forcing the Death Stalker to move a few feet back.

Free from the Grimm's weight, Jaune tilted his head to study the damage he dealt. Two damaged pincers and a direct cut that ran from its arm and down to part of its main body. Grinning, he couldn't help it, he felt accomplished. Here he was, fighting a Death Stalker one-on-one, and by the looks of it— _winning_!

Not given too much time to appreciate his handy work, the Death Stalker's already on him again, trying to sting him with its deadly tail. He cautiously sidestepped the attack, feeling his Aura giving him the speed to carefully counter each move, but the power of Aura only granted him so much leeway. Without Excalibur's ability to withstand virtually any opposing force, Jaune didn't want to imagine the outcome of such a fight. At least for him, it appeared that the Grimm's pincers were too damaged to be used anymore.

What a shame.

Waiting for another sting, Jaune barely dodged the move, gracing the violent movement by a hair. Driven by rage, he quickly stepped forward, cutting the Death Stalker's stinger clean off its tail, enjoying for a split moment its howl of pain before the remaining tail quickly tackled him, full force, against the ground. The earth beneath him cracked in various places, indenting him into the framework.

"Arg! That hurts! That's going to leave a mark in the morning."

Jaune didn't even have time to act before he's grabbed and trapped within the confines of the Death Stalker's grip, slowly crushing him between its pincer with the Arc only having one arm free. During the ruffle, he lost control of Excalibur, having accidentally willed it away, and was only left with a stored Aura ball within his palm to call a weapon.

Feeling his Aura armor cracking under the Grimm's increasing force, Jaune aimed at the Death Stalker with his free arm, forming Shooting Star and coughing bits of blood in the process.

"Soar, Shooting Star!"

A bright ball of Aura scarcely missed the Grimm's head, making direct impact on the Grimm's abdominal instead, tearing through parts of the armor plating and ripping chunks of bone off. The pain alone made the Death Stalker drop Jaune, screeching in indescribable pain, and the Arc hardly had a moment to get up before the Grimm's back on him, aiming both its sharp pincers on each of his sides, intent to kill him.

Time slowing down, Jaune forced his body to move forward, thrusting his palm out in an ever-increasing speed. He didn't have time to form Excalibur or reload Shooting Star. All he had left was the unnamed Aura ball to use for an attack. Aiming for nothing else, he formed an Aura sphere in a bright light of concentration, and drove it directly at the Death Stalker's head.

The pincers almost reached Jaune's side, but his Aura ball made direct contact with the Death Stalker's head first. An explosion broke free, throwing dust and dirt in every conceivable direction. The power behind the Aura sphere was undeniably massive and daunting, the only problem, the Aura ball wasn't strong enough to pierce through the Grimm's resilient bone structure, not entirely, not without at least more time. Jaune's left to do damage control, trying to add more Aura to the attack to increase its destructive power.

It's not working.

He's quickly losing stability and Aura reserves in trying to keep the sphere alive.

Unlike a Ursa Major, this Grimm ranked higher on the food chain. A simple one-to-one ratio of Aura and power didn't mix too well with a Death Stalker. A simple abundance of weight counteracted his concoctions. The mixture table required a higher degree of control he simply lacked. His reference table only documented so much. Again, time proved to be his handicap. Whatever power he unleashed just needed more time to take effect, but variables blocked his path at every corner.

Feeling the Aura ball becoming unstable, and the Grimm going for the retribution, Jaune closed his eyes, knowing he wouldn't be able to dodge the Death Stalker's next attack from this range.

... Damn it.

He's so tired of being weak.

Damn it.

He's so tired of feeling like he didn't belong here.

Damn it!

He's just so tired of _lying_!

 **Lub dub!**

Feeling that tug in his soul again, Jaune felt a very cold presence abruptly wash over him, forcing his eyes open from the sudden harsh coldness that swept his soul in undulated darkness. It's like everything warm and comforting that Aura gave him, just got stripped away and replaced with an abyss of loneliness that hurt to breath in. And for a split-moment, his pure white Aura turned deathly pitch-black, encasing every inch of him in a never ending torrent of grief and sorrow that had no end.

The feel of the intense rush of power from the black Aura broke apart the Death Stalker's extremely resilient shell, ripping apart its head in a dark and light show of unmatched strength and despair. Alarmed, Jaune couldn't begin to feel relieved, this power wouldn't allow him such joyous emotions. Every positive emotion in his body was robbed and thrown away into an endless void where screams couldn't be heard from, leaving him a husk of a shell filled with bitterness and emptiness. Jaune couldn't even smile at the thought of winning.

Confused, Jaune felt the Grimm's head getting torn apart between his fingers. He watched the Death Stalker's pincers eventually fall helplessly to the floor, bone fragments condensing slowly around his Aura like a pull of intense gravity, signaling its sadden demise before the attack could even finish. By the time Jaune finally stopped, control gone, the Grimm's already dissolving into oblivion and his pitch-lack Aura had dissolved along with it, returning the other half of his emotions. The large crashing of the Grimm's body shook his core, along with the earth beneath his feet.

No one would blame him for taking two-steps back, examining his palm critically. Jaune didn't even have the time to feel ecstatic that he survived and beat a Death Stalker, he's far too preoccupied with the recent Aura development. Pride could come later.

"What the heck was that?"

Extending his palm out, he tried to re-summon the dark Aura, or whatever that was, into a sphere or glow, but nothing came but his normal, pure, white ones. Curious, he tried multiple times, getting the same result over and over again. It's frustrating to say the least. Jaune couldn't even get his glow to turn black, completely ambiguous to his extent of Aura knowledge.

Whatever that was? He couldn't seem to use it again.

Jaune wasn't even sure if what happened, actually happened.

 _Growl_!

Turning his head, he'd completely forgotten about the pack of Beowolves, the Death Stalker's appearance sort of overshadowed their importance. For some reason, they must've allowed Jaune and the Death Stalker to fight alone. Probably too afraid to get stuck in the crossfire. Death haunted all creatures. Grimm and human were no exception. Still, he frowned, testing his Aura reserves.

Force to put aside this crazy moment, Jaune prepared to form Excalibur the normal way, ready to fight still with passable levels of Aura, but he felt a shift in his Aura. A shift that changed the entire spectrum of Jaune's Aura. Something different. Something powerful. Very, very powerful. Life-changing even.

Lifting his hand instinctively, he stared hard at the Aura ball forming, feeling a sudden greater amount of control on it. And without even thinking about it, he silently created Excalibur from that Aura ball with only one hand, not two.

It's enough to take his breath away.

"I can't believe it..." Jaune really couldn't. Never had he ever created Excalibur with just one hand before. Trust him, he had tried fruitlessly. "No way! I've been trying to do this forever!"

Unable to contain his excitement, Jaune lifted the Aura blade into the air, laughing at nothing and feeling a new sense of power, pride, and resolve. Maybe, _just maybe_ , everything could still fall into place like a perfect puzzle. Things didn't appear so dim anymore, a light at the end of a very dark tunnel beckoned with promises of power and endless possibility, and Jaune wanted it all.

Pushing his celebrating for later, he lightly glared off in the distance, slowly walking toward the Beowolf pack. He didn't know how to explain it, but Jaune's new Aura control had already healed a great portion of his wounds from the Death Stalker fight, his reserves felt fine, and he'd even reduced the amount of Aura needed to maintain Excalibur.

Exquisite!

Simply exquisite!

Watching the human walking up toward their pack, some of the Beowolves began to step back after witnessing a greater Grimm get torn to shreds by said human. Some wanted to fight him, anyways, strong or not, but it's the Alpha Beowolf that stopped them all from foolishly attacking and throwing their lives away.

Stepping forward, while using its massive arms to push the lesser Beowolves back, the pack leader commanded all the weaker Beowolves to run while it stayed behind to fight and hold him off. Years of life experience had taught the Grimm a thing or two about dangerous fights. And of course not all accepted this command until the Alpha Beowolf growled at the younger ones, demanding they flee.

This was a battle they couldn't win.

As pack leader, it was its job to defend them. To make sure it never had to crawl over the bodies of its pack.

Growling one more time, the smaller Beowolves finally ran away, leaving their leader to most likely die by the human. It's not until only those two remains that Jaune Arc stopped completely in his tracks, finding the situation utterly stunning. The Alpha Beowolf had sacrificed itself for its pack, like some Courageous Leader? That sparked something new in Team JNPR's Fearless Leader.

It made him think, consider, and plan.

"Hn? I wonder?"

Aiming Shooting Star at a retreating Beowolf, Jaune prepared to fire, Aura sphere glowing in retaliation, but the Alpha Beowolf jumped in front with its body as a shield, blocking his target. That finally set the Arc off. Slowly lowering his arm, Jaune undid Shooting Star, unable to properly think anymore. This was really happening? This Grimm was protecting another Grimm? Not only that, but this Alpha had purposely thrown its life away for its comrades to escape and live to fight another day.

Unbelievable!

He stared with narrowed eyes, watching the Grimm move slowly in anticipation for an attack. "This Grimm... sacrificed itself... for them? The leader? Its pack?"

Lowering Excalibur, the act of selfless bravery got to him on a personal level, inspiring the Arc to act, rather than hide in a forest. It would've been funny if it wasn't so darn perfect! Imagine? This Grimm just handed him the best idea he needed. He found his answer. Ironically, it came from a Grimm, humanity's greatest threat, but it's the answer he still needed nonetheless.

In a way, Jaune now knew how to protect his team.

Willing away Excalibur, Jaune cracked some of his bones into place, feeling all trace of his anger dying all at once. He began to walk out of Emerald Forest, absently waving to the wary Grimm with his back foolishly turned. Idiotic or not, that Beowolf's proved to be a greater Fearless Leader than himself, and for that he walked away, confident in his shuffling intuition.

A leader like that shouldn't be cut down.

"... Thanks."

The Grimm never once attacked.

...

Breathing calmly, Jaune tried fruitlessly to control his nerves, forcing his hand on the impressive elevator door. His heart's beating a mile a minute, and now he could start to feel his Aura reserves being practically drained against what he previously believed to be a surplus only moments ago. And things only got worse, his legs refused to move, wanting to hide a bit longer in the elevator. Honestly, his entire body was sore everywhere, muscles hurt, and he thought about backing out, but if a Grimm could be selfless and sacrifice itself for others, then so could he!

For them—for his team—for _his friends_!

Ringing the elevator door open, Jaune Arc stepped in, feeling every part of body tense up in absolute fear. He was less afraid when he was fighting the Death Stalker one-on-one. At least then he had some semblance of hope of coming out of that battle alive. This was a game he had no chance in winning.

"Mr. Arc? This is a surprise. I didn't expect to see you come through my door."

"Headmaster Ozpin..." Jaune breathed, trying to meet the calm man in the eyes and practically failing. Turning back was no longer an option. He's betting everything on this. "There's something I must tell you."

* * *

 **Author Notes:** Edited **\- 11/05/2017**


	6. Charcoal

**Disclaimer:** I own nothing of RWBY.

* * *

 **Charcoal**

 **By: Imyoshi**

Stay calm.

He's just the Headmaster of Beacon Academy.

Nothing to be afraid of!

"Something you must tell me?" Ozpin mussed, sipping away at his ever present coffee mug. He sat behind his desk, working on what appeared to be papers for the other team's expulsion. "And may I inquire what that might be?"

Ozpin hummed lightly, leaning back in his chair. Poor boy looked like he was going to have a heart attack any second now. So he'd let Mr. Arc slide for showing up randomly to his office—without an appointment—just this once. Everyone got one freebie. And who knew? Could prove entertaining to hear what the young man had to say. It definitely beat filing expulsion papers.

Standing across the Headmaster's room, Jaune used every ounce of courage he could muster, trying to remember his confidence lessons from his father. Stay calm and never back away. Those were just a few of the Arc's most promising oaths. Although, those lessons hadn't really helped him in the love department, but his father must've nabbed mother somehow. So there's hope—there's _always_ hope.

"Yea..." Jaune sighed, wondering how lucky he truly was. He couldn't help but lower his head in slight shame. "I'm afraid I have some bad news. It's about my stay here at Beacon."

"Oh?" Ozpin trailed, brows reacting. He actually put down his coffee mug, resting his elbows calmly on his desk. Now Jaune Arc's got his full attention. "Do tell. What bad news are you referring to? And what about your stay here at Beacon?"

Looking up, Jaune bravely walked up forward to Ozpin's desk, putting everything on the line.

"It's about my transcripts."

...

An hour earlier, Pyrrha Nikos was sitting in history, drumming her fingers over her desk, waiting for both her partner and Professor Oobleck's arrival. The professor didn't disappoint, arriving right on schedule, glasses shining and posture impeccably straight. However, Jaune's nowhere to be seen, not only missing, but now late. And Oobleck was notorious for giving out detention, just ask Ruby and occasionally Yang. And if he didn't arrive soon enough, Pyrrha could predict Jaune's future, and it had something to do with Saturday morning detention. Unless, of course, he's miraculously lucky and Doctor Oobleck just so happened to not notice his missing presence.

She'd sooner believe in magic.

A vibration in her pocket pulled her thoughts away, funk all gone. Immediately, Pyrrha's about to reach down and look at her new message, thinking it was perhaps Jaune, but Doctor Oobleck chose that exact moment to resume last week's lecture. His mouth move fast, his feet quicker, but the champion knew better. It's his eyes that were the true contenders. The very moment she would've reached for her scroll, Professor Oobleck would've checkmated and cemented his move.

Pyrrha couldn't have that.

Unlike her absent leader, the threat of Saturday morning detention loomed over her like a plague. She'd sooner throw a match that get stuck waking up at an ungodly hour on a Saturday. So instead she hunched over and took notes, writing only so much her distracted mind could follow. She'd have to read the message later. Hopefully, it's from her missing partner.

Drumming her pencil across her notebook, Pyrrha wondered if Ren and Nora noticed Jaune's absence. If anything, they should've since they sat closer to him than her, but the champion's not holding her breath, knowing Ren's hands were busy controlling a distracted Nora. Watching over their vanishing leader wasn't on his list of things to do. That's more expertise than anything.

By the time fifteen minutes pass into the lecture, she figured Jaune wasn't showing up to history. He'd never been more than a couple minutes late. And with an hour left to go, Pyrrha doubted he'd make an appearance now. Oobleck would be sure to hand him a detention otherwise. It'd be wiser to hide and not show up. So she's forced to wait the remaining hour before venturing out to find her leader.

Preferably, it's probably nothing too serious. Jaune must've had his reasons. She's sure of it. Still, the clock's moving too slow for her liking, and she couldn't process or focus on the lecture for more than a minute at any given time.

The hour—one of the longest she'd ever felt—passed painfully slow. She must've glared at the clock at least fifty times, heard its tick-tock clicks more than a hundred, and her pencil's lead probably snapped just as much.

 _Beep_! _Beep_!

The moment the final bell rung, Pyrrha practically jumped out her seat, wishing nothing more than to escape the confines of the classroom. But Professor Oobleck zoomed in front of her, blocking her path while the other students ventured out, all except for Nora, Ren, and her. When the room's barren, except for them four, Doctor Oobleck enjoyed a quick sip of his ever warm coffee, glaring through the lens of spectacles in slight earnest.

"Are you going to force me to ask?"

Nora blinked innocently. "Ask what?"

Sipping more of his coffee, the professor towered over the tiny Valkyrie. "I couldn't help but notice your leader's absence! So? Where is Mr. Arc?"

Nora's only blinking more, slowly coming to the same realization. "Jaune-Jaune's missing?"

Knowing a lost cause when he saw one, Oobleck zoomed over to Pyrrha instead, still towering over the prudent champion. "Miss Nikos? Do you happened to know where your leader is? I would assume so, you are his partner." Pyrrha couldn't lie. She shook her head and Bartholomew hummed in concentration. "Hn? I see! Very well! I shall confront Ozpin and report Mr. Arc's unexcused absence. Excuse me!"

Before they could defend their leader, he's gone in a blur, putting Ruby's super-speed to shame. A dust cloud was all that remained of Oobleck's vanishing act, leaving a very confused Team JNPR in his wake. And when their wits finally caught up to them, they're a tangled limb of emotions and confusion.

"It's not fair!' Nora pouted, cheeks puffed and arms firm. "How come it's okay for Jaune to play hooky, but when I do it, Ren gets all mad and disappointed?"

Ren refrained from answering, flicking his hand over Nora's hair in a light-hearted attempt to cheer up the pancake lover. She's not amused, not entirely. "Because our leader actually takes notes, Nora. He's paying attention in class. Besides, it's not okay, it sounds like he's going to get detention for it."

She only heard one thing, frowning adorably at her stubborn friend. "Hey! I pay attention! It just gets so boring! But my mind's like a steel trap! Nothing gets in or out! Checkmate, Ren!"

"Oh? Really?" Ren lightly smiled, _booping_ Nora on the nose. He hovered over her personal space, eyes vacant and figure teasing. "So then you'd have no problem telling me what today's lesson was about? It was quite exciting."

Backing away with her cheeks flushed, Nora wisely decided to hang close to Pyrrha. "So... Pyrrha! Why isn't Jaune-Jaune here?"

Pyrrha paused. How was she supposed to know? "I'm sorry, but I'm not sure. His disappearing, while getting less common, have become kind of routine now."

"That is true..." Ren remarked, letting Nora slide for sleeping through class again. "But he must have his reasons. I'm sure he'll tell us why he skipped class. It's not like him to miss a class."

Nora's cheeks puffed out a bit more, still wanting justice for the unfair treatment her leader received. Her stomach then grumbled. "Whatever! This is getting us nowhere and I still wanna learn how to make pancakes! I'm sure we'll find our Fearless Leader later! He's always somewhere around here!" Grabbing Ren by his sleeve, Nora swiftly dragged him toward the Mess Hall's kitchens. "C'mon, Ren! Let's make some pancakes!"

Sighing to herself, Pyrrha walked after them, wondering where her partner was. It proved to be a pointless endeavor. Nora's right, anyways—as frightening as that sounded—Jaune would make himself known when he felt like it. She'd be lying to say she wasn't used to it. And Pyrrha's not really comfortable lying, not really one of her stronger points.

How else would Jaune be able to see through hers?

Blowing a wisp of air, she quickened her pace, hoping to stop whatever mess Nora might create. Against popular belief, Ren honestly held no control over the overactive girl, folding like a house of cards at the smallest sign of sadness. A quick wobble of the lips, maybe some puppy-dog eyes, even a small arm hug, and Ren would practically let Nora destroy to her heart's limitless content. He's pretty much putty in her devious hands.

It'd be cute in a non-exhausting sort of way.

Pyrrha's not saying Ren wouldn't prevent Nora from blowing things up, but he wouldn't stop her until after enough damage had been done. The Lie only acted once enough collateral damage had been implemented. Then, and only then, would he intervene to stop her. And the champion could not have that.

Not on her watch!

So she walked. She put Jaune's disappearance aside, figuring he'd show up sooner or later. Pyrrha's hoping for sooner, like at the Mess Hall, but a voice in her head doubted such a chance. Either way, Pyrrha couldn't wait to hear his excuse for cutting class. Monty knew Nora's jealous of the lack of restraint he appeared to own.

Passing the Mess Hall, she headed for the kitchen, knowing Nora's goal to pester the chefs. Pyrrha only just stepped into Beacon's kitchen before a dust cloud of white preemptively attacked her in a hail of flour. In less than the span of a second, her entire front body's covered from the not so random explosion, leaving a floury silhouette of her person on the nearby wall. It's a glorious frame, catching her body physique perfectly. Right down to the curve of her hair and all natural expression from the sneak explosion. A true work of art no one would be able appreciate.

Such was the curse of flour.

Without even saying so much as a word, she calmly blinked away the flour from her eyes, knowing the culprit for this delicious crime, and unsure if she should be slightly amused at her teammate's antics, or a tad exhausted like Ren most likely was. Often times, Pyrrha wondered how Ren made it this far in life with Nora beside him. Other times, she pondered how Nora's antics never seemed to push Ren away.

Such thoughts puzzled her, keeping her up during the nights Nora snuggled into Ren's bed, crushing the poor man under her strong and firm hold, contrasted to her normally drooling and sleeping expression. Again, Pyrrha had plenty of questions, but no answers to fill the slowly growing gaps in-between.

Wordlessly, she settled to blink once more, effortlessly trying to flick away all the flour off her arms. Troubling enough, it wasn't coming off.

"Nora."

"Yes, Ren!"

Poking her head up, Pyrrha could see two figures standing in the center of the room, their flour silhouettes portraying what had transpired before everything happened. Nora's apparently had not-so accidentally pressed the wrong button on what looked to be a mixer. Then, the other layer of flour on the wall, told a tale of Ren trying to fruitlessly stop her before the flour bomb exploded.

Foolish Ren.

"Why did you add flour to the mixer?" Ren wiped some flour off his eyes, glaring lightly in a skin of white. He then cleaned some flour off Nora's eyes, making sure to ignore the mischief poking though the layer of white that was Nora Valkyrie. "Well?"

Grinning a flour stained smile, Nora _booped_ Ren on the nose, hugging the mixer still in her hands. "Mmm, I don't know. Isn't that how you make pancakes? You always add something to the mixer when _you_ make them!"

Ren felt a headache coming on. Trying to clean Nora up, he rubbed her flour covered cheeks while fighting the slight tug on his lips all at the same time. It's practically impossible for him to stay mad at Nora when she's _acting_ so innocent. Luckily, Ren knew better, she's nowhere near innocent. Not by a long shot. Still didn't make it any easier to stay angry with her.

"I don't just add flour, Nora. You also need to add other ingredients before you can begin mixing." Nora's responses were mumbled gibberish as Ren wiped more flour away from her cheeks. Her eyes were bright with joy as he moved the mixer away to the nearest table. "There's a lot more to making pancakes than adding flour."

"Like what?"

Ren rubbed away a little more flour from her cheeks, holding her chin lightly to glare at the exposed curiousness that was Nora Valkyrie. "Well, first, you also need to add some baking powered," he trailed, slowly moving closer to clean away most of the flour from her face. "Not just flour."

"Is that all?" she mumbled, realizing how close Ren was getting to her. The air's getting a little warm, her cheeks cooked under his dancing fingers, and she idly wondered if this was how a pancake felt on the frying pan.

"No..." Ren's voice dropped, enjoying the way his fingers dance on Nora's soft, flour covered skin. "You also need salt."

"What else?" Nora's voice cautiously lowered with her hand nervously resting on his chest. It's shaking and Ren's calm heartbeat lulled her back to safety. "What else... what else do you add?"

He's still holding her chin, and her eyes closed a bit. "Some sugar."

"Sugar?"

"Yes..." he answered, using his thumb to gently wipe her cheeks, pulling her a bit closer. "A lot of sugar."

Nora couldn't stop her body from sliding closer to Ren if she tried. Now she's resting her other hand now on his chest now. A dangerous amount of red peeked through the flour from her cheeks, and Ren's pretty much stopped rubbing his thumbs across her face. His firm arms wrapped around her tiny frame, and his pink eyes pierce easily enough through all the flour covering them, focusing solely on the delicate shade of turquoise staring back at him.

"... I do like sugar."

He pulled her closer still, leaning skillfully down. "I know."

Hidden in the background, Pyrrha stayed as silent as possible, _really_ not wanting to interrupt this budding moment, more than happy to being a fly on the wall. She's kind of glad she's camouflaged with the room, happy that her silhouette's hidden behind her. No part of her wanted to ruin this moment. In fact, she's grinning like a love struck teen, overpowered by the scene happening in front of her. This was better than any soap-opera.

 _Beep_! _Beep_!

And Pyrrha thought Ruby was fast.

Separating so quickly that Pyrrha had trouble following their movements, Nora pushed Ren violently back, fighting back a wordless scream as Ren fell face first onto the flour covered floor, creating another mini-explosion in the kitchen. Pyrrha's yet again got covered in flour, and she's forced to cough away the white powder, waving her hand as a fan to push away the random flour particles still floating in the air.

"Pyrrha?" Ren calmly spoke, not at all bothered by her presence, carefully picking himself up from the floor like nothing happened. He went as far as to wipe away flour from his sleeve in a nonchalant way. There's not a hint of emotion peeking through his face, but that could be from flour mask. "I didn't hear you come in."

"Yea!" Nora added all flustered, pointing at her accusingly. Her hand wouldn't stop shaking and there's plenty of red exposed on _her_ cheeks. "When did you get here?!"

Pyrrha felt bad, real bad—even if it's totally not her fault—Nora had probably been waiting for, Monty knew how long, for that exact moment, and her darn scroll ruined it. Looked like she owed her explosive teammate an apology and maybe some form of retribution later? Anything to fix the heart-broken girl and end her endless humiliation.

Deciding to spare her teammates the embarrassment, Pyrrha grabbed her scroll, getting ready to open the new message. She blinked when she saw the message being one hour old, reminding her of the unread message her scroll still contained. Now it made more sense to her. Her scroll must've reminded Pyrrha that an unread message still existed.

Interested, she tapped the email, but stopped herself from reading it. First things first.

Pyrrha smiled lightly at Nora, pretending she saw nothing. "Oh... I just walked in to make sure you didn't destroy the kitchen... which you did. Then my scroll had alerted me to a message and the next thing I know... all of _this_ happened."

Hearing her answer, Nora relaxed a bit, sighing in relief, but it's Ren's stare that met Pyrrha's. He's silent for a moment, scrutinizing his eyes accusingly at her with a little bit of recognition. No lie got past him, and Pyrrha's just not good at it. Still, she remained strong, and eventually his glare died while he fought that same tug on his lips from before.

"Well?" Ren prouded, blowing a stray strand of black and white hair away from his nose. "What's the message?"

"Yea!" Nora grinned, getting slowly back into her groove. "What's it say?!"

Taking a moment to enjoy the awkward atmosphere dissolving away, Pyrrha wiped off some flour from nose, opening up the email in a slight hurry. Gosh! How much flour did Nora use in that mixing bowl, anyways? The whole darn bag?

"It's from Jaune. And it says..." Pyrrha reads through the splotches of flour, coughing up more along the way. "Something came up... team meeting later—!"

"Whelp!" Nora's already heading toward the door from the mere mention of a team meeting. "I'm going to go take a shower and—!"

"—Make sure Nora knows she has to be there." Pyrrha cut in, smirking a little from Nora's pout. Then her smirk died as she recalled actually wanting Jaune to tag along. He'd been so secretive lately.

"What's wrong?" Ren asked, noting Pyrrha's frown.

Pyrrha's shoulders hunched down, disappointed. "I don't know, I was kind of hoping Jaune would've showed up. He's been so... distant lately."

"You mean like these past few months?" Nora instantly chipped in, using Ren's recently clean sleeve to wipe off some flour off her nose. He made no attempt to stop her. "I know! And ever since he _cheated_ on our bet, he's been extra sneaky."

Pyrrha and Ren sighed, amazed that Nora was _still_ stuck on that. After all this time, she still hadn't dropped it. It's a little nerve-wracking for the duo. Who knew what Nora's like holding a _mean_ grudge?

"Nora?" Ren started, moving behind the girl to wipe away flour from both her hair and ears. "How could've Jaune cheated on dust counting? I don't see how it's possible."

"I don't know!" Nora cried, giggling a little from Ren messing with her ears. She'd admit she's guilty for leaning into Ren's touch. "But I just know he did. And him not telling us— _me_ how he did it is so unfair!"

"You must learn to pick your battles, Nora." Pyrrha smiled lightly before frowning. She rubbed her arm sadly. "Still, I don't like it. It's the Cardin problem all over again. I don't mind that he's keeping secrets, we all have them. I'm just hoping it's not hurting him. The last one didn't exactly help."

"Maybe he has a reason?" Ren argued, carelessly ruffling up Nora's hair and getting a cloud of flour to spill all over on his partner. "We all got our secrets. And if it was important, Jaune will tell us when he's ready."

"But when will he be ready?"

"That..." Ren began, trying to find the right words. "Is up to him. Jaune's always been a rather secretive person. Since the first day we've met, he's kept to himself a little. If he's got a secret, then unless he's in big trouble, he's not going to reveal it. It's kind of in his nature. Next to always sticking by his word. We all know that."

"Yea!" Nora added, swaying in place. "We got to trust in our Fearless Leader! Except for dust counting! Then he's a big cheater! And we shouldn't trust him, ever!"

Pyrrha remained silent for a moment, remembering Jaune's promise to get stronger. What Ren said was oddly true. Jaune always committed himself to his word. The Arc promise meant a lot to him. Even more than that, he truly believed in upstanding a promise. Nothing meant more to him than keeping his word. It was one of Jaune's more qwerty, but shining quirks of his.

But then she recounted his complete halt in progress with his training, and his utter lack of concern about it. She stumbled on the thought of him skipping lunch and dinner all the time. All of it had been so random, so out of the blue that she didn't know what to think. Didn't know what to say or even how to voice out her concerns. Nothing made sense anymore and she hated it with a burning passion.

Pyrrha knew he was hiding something from them—from her. And that hurt. Honest to Monty the secrets hurt. She personally thought they've gotten past this, past all the secrets. Pyrrha wanted Jaune to trust her. But yet again, Ren brought up a fair point. If nothing else, Jaune's always been a secretive person. From the very first day he entered Beacon Academy, he'd kept his secrets hidden and thoughts bounded tightly, kept his fears and insecurities bottled up for no one else to see them.

Never wanting others to worry about him. A flaw of his personality, but no one's perfect. She certainly wasn't.

Far from it.

"How can you two be so calm about this?" Pyrrha probed, wanting some answers. "He's keeping a secret from us and you two are so... okay with it. What if it's doing more harm than good?"

Nora stayed silent for a second, unsure how to answer her question. Part of her smile broke and a haunting memory clawed at her mind. Luckily, it's Ren who answered, actually taking a moment to stand protectively in front of her. Nora's smile practically returned back to normal, and she resisted the urge to lean closer into Ren's protective bubble.

"Let's just say... Nora and I..." Ren stopped to look at Nora. Images of their past came back to haunt him and he pushed them away. "Know what it's like to keep secrets and how valuable they may be. Sometimes they're better left alone, other times you're forced to deal with them. You're just have to trust in Jaune."

"That's just it... I don't know if I can trust in Jaune." Pyrrha finally admitted, actually ridding Nora's flour grin and Ren's stoic expression. "He's been skipping meals and was even skipped class. I'm not sure I even know who our Fearless Leader is anymore."

Pausing, Nora actually frowned for a moment, looking at Ren and hoping for more of his infinite words of wisdom to make everything better. When he didn't say anything, Nora forced a smile, getting into Pyrrha's personal bubble in record time.

"Hey! Of course you know who our Fearless Leader is!" Nora hummed, throwing her hands up in the air. "So what if Jaune-Jaune's hiding something! Then let's make it our super-secret mission to find out what it is. We can follow him around if you want? That way we can find out what's bothering our hush-hush leader."

"Nora, that's an invasion of privacy and defeats the purpose of what I just said."

Ignoring Ren, Nora's hyped for her idea, actually wanting to spy on their Fearless Leader. Finally, she could catch him and his thievery ways! Prove once and for all that he cheated on their dust counting competition! Oh! It made her shake just thinking about it. And maybe even help Pyrrha a little. The cereal girl's all about the busting!

Nora tugged Pyrrha toward the door. "C'mon, let's go spy on our Fearless Leader!"

Something forced the girl to follow, but only until she saw her flour silhouette in the background, allowing her to remember exactly what she had walked into before she got covered head-to-toe in flour.

"What about the kitchen and the mess you've caused?" Pyrrha suddenly pulled back, scanning the flour covered room. Her eyes slightly narrowed. "Actually? Where are the chefs? Or the kitchen staff?"

Laughing, Nora waved off the question. "Oh! They're on break!"

"And they let you in here by yourselves?"

"Uh..." Nora turned to her source of infinite knowledge. "Ren?"

Hearing Nora's plead, Ren folded immediately and glanced around the kitchen, noting many flour covered appliances and the amount of clean up duty they'd be stuck with if Beacon's chefs came and caught them red-handed. The sight broke his spirits in more ways than one, diminishing the glow of his soul. Every corner of wasted flour and inedible food almost brought tears to his eyes, and if this had been anyone _but_ Nora, then he would've been angry, furious even for the blatant waste of food.

Except, he's far too lazy to be bothered with any of that nonsense.

Going for the not-so subtle approach, Ren pulled Nora away from Pyrrha, which only led to the bubbly girl latching onto Ren's sleeve, and promptly released a bit of his Aura. Nora smiled a totally innocent smile that just screamed guilty. Normally, he's more reserved when it came to food and anything wasteful that followed alongside it, but Nora's a bold exception to his fortress of responsibility. A difficult dilemma, he knew. One that required him to look the other way and push his personal peeves aside, for the greater good or some nonsense of that caliber.

The subtext didn't matter.

Now onto their leader problem, Ren honestly had mixed feelings about it. Whatever issue pushed Jaune into hiding again was still an unknown to them. What was known to them—or at least him—was that Jaune's a secretive person, but not on purpose. It's like a self-defense mechanism he'd built up for himself. Before, Ren's noticed the signs Jaune had with dealings with issues. Sneaking into Beacon, having no combat skills, hiding Cardin bullying him, in the end it all came down to lying.

Their leader's a liar. There's no two-ways about it. He's just an honest liar. And Ren knew a thing or two about _lying_.

Jaune's a person who retreated back into his skin whenever something pushed him too hard. Not living up to his family's expectations, getting hurt, being not good enough, all of those pushed Jaune away. Away from his team, and away from the truth. Which only left the Arc to follow the path of a lie. And truth to be told, Lie Ren's not even sure if his Fearless Leader noticed he's doing just that. Again, it's a self-defense mechanism. A way to hide away the pain. People kept secrets for many reasons and his leader's no different.

They're only human.

In other words, Jaune's following the footsteps of a recovering alcoholic. The only difference was Jaune's urge to lie rather than hit the bottle. To compare, first they had a problem. Then they fix it. Then something terrible happened and they revert back to the problem to relieve stress. It's all to easy to see. All to easy to fall back into. Not much else could be done until the reason for said problem's revealed. So whatever cataclysm that pushed Jaune into this path of lying again was the source of his invisible pain.

Problem not yet solved, Ren thought about the other source of issues brewing underneath the surface of Team JNPR, Pyrrha Nikos. The way he saw it, it's impossible to stop Pyrrha now. As of this moment, she's taking the opening presented to her, knowing Nora would be the push she needed to follow through. Ren knew he couldn't stop her, not with Pyrrha fueling her curiosity like a thirsty person stranded in the middle of a desert.

His only choice now was to do damage control and prevent the inevitable.

Focusing on his new task at hand, Ren glanced over to Nora, who's looking at him like he hung the broken moon, and concentrated on his control. No matter how hard he tried, any negative emotions tying to her and him were nonexistent.

"First things first, if we're going to go through with following our leader... we better leave before the chefs return from their break. We'll be stuck here for hours if they see us, and I for one don't feel like getting stuck on cleanup duty." Ren skillfully pointed out, earning an approving tug on his sleeve from Nora, and a disapproving glare from the champion.

Now, normally Pyrrha would've argued at doing something so dishonorable, but when the kitchen sink suddenly sprang a leak, and the fridge door fell apart in ways she couldn't quite comprehend, she was the _one_ to push both Ren and Nora out the kitchen, all the while, completely ignoring the smoke detector going off in the background.

...

Taking the elevator down from Ozpin's office, Jaune couldn't properly think straight. Pulling out his scroll, he sighed, waiting for the elevator to reach the ground floor. Everything that happened had been totally unexpected. The meeting had gone _differently_ than what he honestly predicted.

Meeting?

That word echoed in his head for a moment, puzzling him. Then, by looking down at his scroll, his eyes widened. "Oh! Yea? I called a team meeting later, didn't I?" Jaune had almost forgotten. With Ozpin and the Grimm, it had completely slipped his mind. "Good thing I remembered— and now I'm talking to myself."

Gripping his scroll, his thoughts raced to conversing what he exactly planned to tell his team. After the talk with Ozpin, his priorities had been shifted. Skewed and realigned to a different path than the one he originally was set on walking. And Jaune's not sure if the new path he'd chosen proved to be a good or bad one yet. But he what he did know was that his team shouldn't be left in the dark, anymore, about his Aura abilities.

Time to come clean and rid the lies holding him down.

Actually, speaking of Aura, he's feeling practically drained from his earlier fight with the Death Stalker, barely feeling any leftover Aura anywhere in his body whatsoever. The cold emptiness reminded him of his earlier discussion with Weiss and Dust crystals, and his so called idea for said Dust crystals. The lack of warmth hurt in ways he'd never considered, never felt, and Jaune found it strikingly odd. The more he got used to Aura, the more he noticed the little things whenever he hit close to zero. Being warm and comfortable for one.

Little to no Aura meant a colder body. How odd.

Hearing the elevator ding, Jaune stepped out and peered out the nearest window. The day's still relatively good, a little late with the sun slowly going down, but Jaune would really prefer to get started on his newest idea now, rather than later.

Walking down the hall, he's met with Doctor Oobleck, who had a critical glare aimed directly at his startled figure. The good doctor zoomed over to Jaune, preventing him from making any sort of escape or movement.

"Ah! Mr. Arc! It appears I've had the good fortunate of bumping into you." A quick sip of his infinite coffee. "You missed my class. May I ask why? What could've possibly forced you to do that?"

Jaune blinked, not sure which direction to go. He could half-truth it. Leave out the part about Emerald Forest and tell him about Professor Ozpin's meeting. It might not buy him enough leeway, but it could at least throw off suspicion. The Arc didn't need eyes on him.

Laughing awkwardly, he rubbed the back of his head. "Yea, I had a meeting with Headmaster Ozpin. It took a lot longer than I expected, sorry for missing your class. I'll make sure to get the notes off of Blake. I'll make sure it won't happen again."

Oobleck loomed over Jaune, regarding him for all he's worth. And like a flip of the switch, his frown's replaced with a goodhearted smile. "That is quite alright! If you had a meeting with the Headmaster, then your absence is excused. But next time I will require a handwritten note, do I make myself clear?" Jaune timidly nodded. "Good! Very good! Now if you would excuse me, I have papers to grade!"

Gone in a flash, Jaune sighed a moment later, wiping away some strands of sweat from his forehead. "That was too close."

If only Doctor Oobleck had gone up to clarify his story with Ozpin, things would've turned out differently, much differently. Chalk one up for dumb luck.

Heading toward his _true_ greatest foe, he scratched the side of his face, using a small amount of Aura to keep him going. He really needed to make his Dust idea work, or his Aura exhaustion was going to become a serious problem in the future. Moving his body on limited Aura was testing his limits. Sad fact was, Jaune's just tired, his muscles were aching. He really wanted to lie down and sleep.

"First a nice trip to Vale to pick up some Dust and then I'm off to find my team."

The Arc never noticed his team hiding in the shadows, spying on him from a hidden corner, as he walked out the Professor Ozpin's building.

...

Damn airships.

Who needed them!

Aura could work all the miracles it wanted on his body, increase strength, faster speeds, perfect weapons, but curing air sickness proved too impossible a task for the limitless power. Go figure.

After throwing up all the stuff in his stomach in a nearby trashcan, Jaune headed to the nearest Dust shop in Vale, From Dust Till Dawn was what Weiss had called it. He had some leftover lien from the amount he took with him to Beacon, alongside Crocea Mors. Hopefully, it was enough to buy at least a few Dust crystals. Lien didn't exactly grow on tress, or he didn't said trees, and the Arc only had so much to spare.

Trailing behind the Arc, the remaining members of Team JNPR spied from their backwards newspaper. Nora's wearing a top hat and fake mustache she'd bought on a whim with a pair of shades. They trailed behind Jaune with Pyrrha feeling absolutely ridiculously in her disguise of glasses and a detective's hat that Nora had lying around.

"How did I let you talk me into this?" Pyrrha grumbled, still cleaning off bits of flour in her hair.

"It was pretty easy!" Nora answered with a teasing grin. She then lifted up her specs, grinning mercilessly. "Anything having do with Jaune usually gets you to fold!"

"That's not true!"

"Is that why you're hiding behind a newspaper, wearing a pair of sunglasses, and stalking our leader?" Ren calmly countered, fixing his shades. They fit pretty well and made him feel a lot more mysterious.

"I choose not to answer that."

Skipping almost, Nora pushed her shades back down, hanging close to Ren. That made the cereal girl think for a moment, grabbing her own pair of shades in the process.

"Nora? _Why_ did you buy these glasses?" Pyrrha asked, fixing her amber glasses fruitlessly. She felt so silly, but she couldn't even imagined what would've happened if Ren hadn't talked Nora out of her fake beard and monocle idea.

"They were on sale!" Nora whispered-yelled, fixing her pair of turquoise shades ecstatically. "I even got Jaune a pair! They're some shade of blue!"

"Speaking of colors, why are mine pink?" Ren flipped the newspaper the right way, actually curious on the article of half-off orange shampoo.

"Because, silly! That's my favorite color!"

Fixing his glasses, Ren accepted the easy-going answer, diving deeper into the newspaper, and finding an article on his favorite health bars. Apparently, some people complained and sent angry letters about their lack of taste? Those monsters! Clearly, their taste buds were simply underdeveloped and couldn't truly appreciate and comprehend the true power and one-of-a-kind taste of his deliciously nutritious health bars.

"I thought you liked pink for a different reason?" Pyrrha accused, tilting her head. "Because it reminds you of Ren and—?"

"Ah!" Nora cried, cupping her hand over Pyrrha's mouth. The bubbly girl looked over and sighed in relief when she saw Ren was too busy reading some article on one-hundred and one ways to sleep better. She then shushed Pyrrha. "I never said that."

"But—!"

"I never said that!"

Taking the hint, Pyrrha nodded silently, enjoying her payback and shyly giving Nora a teasing smile, which the bomber pretended not to notice. Nora, instead, settled on following Jaune behind her partner's shoulder, eventually wrapping her arms around Ren's neck and hanging on his back instead of walking.

Like a sloth.

Ren didn't seem to notice or mind the weight difference, too fixated on the deals the paper had.

They followed Jaune for a while longer, wondering to Monty where he's going. Sometimes, they thought Jaune was lost with his constant head twirling and scroll checking. Finally, though, their Fearless Leader stopped at a shop called From Dust Till Dawn, and Nora promptly jumped off Ren's back, pointing accusingly at the Dust shop!

"Ah ha! I knew it!" Nora yelled, shaking Ren in her victory screech. "Dust shop! See! I told you so!" This time Nora grabbed Pyrrha, peering back and forth between her and the shop. "We've found Jaune's secret hideout where he's been learning how to count dust! I rest my case!"

"Nora." Ren countered, pointing at the sign of the Dust shop. "This is a Dust shop that sells Dust. Not a shop that helps you count dust. There's a difference."

"How do you know that?!" Nora doubly countered. "There's no way to tell!"

Ren lowered his shades, looking super mysterious. "This is where I buy the Dust for your grenade launcher. You didn't think it magically filled up on its own, did you?"

"It doesn't?" Ren shook his head and Nora burst into a set of tears, hugging her best friend for all he's worth. "Aw! You're so good to me, Ren! You're the best! The bestest!"

Ren felt that same tug on his lips again, and wrapped Nora in a one-armed hug, using his other arm to hold the newspaper up and hide them. "I try to be."

Unable to stop herself, Pyrrha crouched ground level to the shop's window, watching Jaune clumsily walk through the Dust shop and accidentally bumping into things back and forth. It was amusing to watch. Then he made it to the shop owner, asking for assistance, and was pointed to the direction of a display case of Dust crystals. Jaune apparently thanked the older man and walked up to the display case, but not before tripping on his own two feet. He's back up before anyone noticed, minus her, and tackled the display case with renew vigor.

Watching Jaune shop for Dust, Pyrrha couldn't help but notice their Fearless Leader looked downright tired, and upon closer inspection, she could see a dried trail of blood marks from his mouth and all the way past his jawline.

Did he get into a fight?

A lot of things didn't add up. Like why Jaune Arc was shopping for Dust in the first place. As far as Team JNPR knew, Jaune didn't use Dust. He'd never been very proficient on the subject and his weapons lacked the design to utilize the substance in any way, shape, or form. So why was he shopping for some? Didn't make any sense to the champion.

On the other side of the window, Jaune's noting the different varieties of Dust crystals—hopelessly lost.

His recent knowledge on the small shards from Weiss's tutoring had only carried him so far. Apparently, he's not the only one to notice as the shop keeper came up to Jaune when he spent the last few minutes staring aimlessly at the case. "Any particular Dust crystal you're looking for, lad?"

Glaring down at the case, Jaune recalled the Dust lesson Weiss had given him on the assortment of colors and properties that a Dust crystal had. He frowned, then he remembered the reason he's even bothering with Dust in the first place.

Aura exhaustion.

Weiss did mention that some Dust crystals contained bits of Aura within them, and his crazy idea did in fact need crystals that could contain Aura. Looking back at the case and the assortment of colors, Jaune's eyes probed and trailed until they spotted a pure white Dust crystal, vastly different compared to the others surrounding it. It narrowly resembled the silver crystals in the case and Weiss never spoke of anything about white Dust shards, and she had gone through the whole color wheel.

Maybe the shop owner had something similar to a Dust crystal with no special properties?

Poking his finger on the display case, Jaune prodded. "What's with that Dust shard?"

The owner walked over to see the Dust shard Jaune's pointing at and shook his head. "Oh? Don't worry about that one, sunny. That one there has lost its power. It's pretty much worthless. More for decoration if you're into that."

"Lost its power?"

The owner reached in and took the Dust crystal out the display case. He handed Jaune the shard, allowing him to test its hollow shell. "Afraid so, the poor thing ran out of juice. That's what happens when it's not used for a long time."

"So in other words?" Jaune said slowly, choosing his words carefully. "It's empty?"

"In a manner of speaking, yes."

Hearing the owner's words, Jaune stared at the crystal in his hand, coming to a abrupt and impulsive decision. "How much?"

"Pardon?"

"How much for that crystal?" Jaune formed a fist, trapping one Dust shard while tapping his finger against the display case to the others. "I would like to buy some. I want to know how much for each."

"Really? Well, let me think," The owner rubbed his chin, thinking hard over it. He wasn't sure how much those almost worthless crystals could sell for, or why the boy wanted to purchase them. If anything, he's grateful someone actually wanted them. "How about five lien for each? I'm never going to sell them, anyways."

"Five lien? Really?" Jaune couldn't fight off his smile. When the owner nodded, Jaune pulled out a hundred-lien bill. "Do you have anymore?"

Later, the Dust shop owner would never truly figure out why a young man had bought out all his worthless, white Dust crystals. The boy had come a little short to buying all of his stash, but he figured that no one else was even going to look at those crystals a second time, very less purchase them, and simply allowed the teenager to have the extras. Nothing venture, nothing gained the old-timer always said.

...

Walking out the shop, Jaune's secured the crystals in his complimentary From Dust Till Dawn bag, hitching the item over his shoulder with a clear kick in his step. It's dark outside now, and he needed to get back to Beacon for his mandatory team meeting, but his troubles remained sedated for the time being. That's more than he could ask for after following today's events.

With a team meeting haunting his thought, Jaune sighed. "That's going to be nightmare."

Using his remaining Aura to keep himself upright from the stressful day, Jaune only took one step forward before an intense amount of Space hit him from out of nowhere. In pilfered his body with an invisible force, only noticeable to him. What's even stranger was that he somewhat recognized the Space hitting him. Jaune had only felt this Aura earlier today in combat class.

"Blake?"

Looking around, Jaune couldn't spot Blake anywhere, but he could feel other Spaces colliding with hers not too far off in some random direction. It's not until he heard a loud _boom_ sound in the direction of the loading docks, that he got a general direction of Blake's Aura and what might be transpiring over there.

Jaune may have only just recently discovered this Aura technique, but he knew enough to figure out that Blake's using her Aura to fight if the other Spaces colliding with hers had any say in it. Jaune didn't even recognize any of the other Spaces, not feeling Ruby's or Yang's either. Which meant that Blake was fighting without her teammates or her teammates weren't actively using their Aura. Preferably, his limited range of Space could be the issue at hand.

Cursing his luck whether or not knowing if she was in danger, Jaune ran toward Blake's Space, hoping she wasn't in any sort of trouble and hoping it was all some huge misunderstanding. He liked to think they've become sort of friends ever since she'd been reading in his room. Even if it's only been for a couple of days—literally! But she'd already sort of wormed herself into his team's room in such a short time that Jaune feared for her safety.

Unbeknownst to him, his team was following him, hot on his trail.

"Where's Jaune going?" Nora asked Ren, wanting more of his infinite wisdom.

"I don't know." So much for infinite wisdom. "But he seems to be in a hurry. We better follow him. There could be trouble."

"Agreed." Pyrrha added.

They followed Jaune for a few minutes, slightly impressed with his almost endless endurance, until they made it to the outskirts of the loading docks and noticed off in the distance an airship being torn apart into two by a beam of green energy. The ship spun in the air and crashed into a cargo tank, which hurled at an unsuspecting Jaune as he's too busy running beneath it.

Pyrrha's about to yell out to their Fearless Leader, warning him to watch out, but that all ceased when the rest of Team JNPR saw Jaune shoot a ball of white light at the cargo tank from his hand, destroying part of it and pushing the rest out of its trajectory, while yelling out some mumbled words they couldn't make out from the distance. The destroyed cargo tank fell hard on the floor, following right alongside Jaune as he clearly showed signs of exhaustion.

Team JNPR stopped to stare at their Fearless Leader.

What was that?

...

A few seconds earlier, Jaune's running toward the docks, feeling Blake's Space still strong with many of the small Spaces weakening or ceasing altogether. There were two other stronger ones as well. And right now he's running on very low Aura reserves and could barely take a step into the cargo bay before a crash from above alerted him to a cargo tank soaring toward him.

Damn.

Running on pure instinct, Jaune lifted his hand into the air, forming Shooting Star and focusing his remaining Aura into firing. His heightened control had granted him the ability to quickly transfer Aura from his body to his hand in a much quicker fashion. It still deemed slower compared to actually storing the Aura sphere separately into his hand, but he's not complaining.

"Soar, Shooting Star!"

Counting his blessing, the Aura sphere destroyed part of the tanker and pushed it away from him, but the sudden use of his already depleted Aura reserves had left him balancing on one knee. He barely flinched from the pile of steel landing right beside him, too tired to care even about the smothering damage he'd done to it. Jaune had more pressing matters to worry over.

Damn! He never felt so exhausted! It's hard to just breathe!

It didn't make any sense to him. How come he never felt this exhausted before he started all this Aura manipulation training? Even Pyrrha's sparring lessons hadn't pushed him this far. And she'd only been pushing and pushing harder every night. That Death Stalker fight must have taken a lot more out of him than he previously thought. But his Aura focused mine said otherwise.

By logically break it down, the process only worsened as his progression in Aura manipulation grew. And today, of all days, his controlled had improved exponentially. Did better control have adverse effects on his body? Jaune didn't know. He didn't _want_ to know. He really hoped that proved not to be the case. But the less Aura he had, the weaker he felt, and not in the terms of tiredness, but simply a lack of energy. Almost like that pitch-black had done something to his body. If, and only if, it existed.

Frowning, Jaune tried to get up, he honestly tried, but he could barely move more than a few centimeters. At least he no longer felt Blake's Space alone, what he guessed was Ruby's tagged alongside his bookworm friend, thank Monty. He could also feel two others, but they weren't actively trying to suppress either Blake's or Ruby's, so he'd drop it. But one of them did, however, feel completely foreign compared to the other three. And not unknown as he had no idea who that person was, but strange. Jaune almost wanted to say unnatural, not normal even, but stopped himself.

How's he supposed to know what's natural when it came to Aura?

"Gosh, I'm tired." Jaune joked, finally feeling the strength to pick himself back up. "I don't even think I can glow or create Excalibur if I tried."

Taking a step back, he gave up channeling his Aura, feeling that Blake was going to be okay, and his instincts agreed with him. Crisis adverted, Jaune only moved one step back before turning around and coming face-to-face with his team, and for a moment, Jaune swore he felt his heart stop.

Each of them have a different expression on their face, but all came pretty damn close to curious. And why they were wearing sunglasses during the middle of the night was beyond him. He's not even going to ask about Nora's ridiculous outfit. Somehow it hardly surprised him. Between the three, Nora still appeared the most normal.

"Guys? What are you doing—?"

"What was that?" Pyrrha cut in, moving closer to Jaune. There's a sense of longing in her eyes. "What was that thing you just did, Jaune? With the glowing light?"

"Yea, Jaune! And what's an Excalibur?" Nora added with her eyes shining in absolute wonder.

Ren refused to say anything, figuring he owed it to Jaune to explain himself, and noting that whatever secret Jaune original had, had been exposed. He felt slightly guilty for learning it without their leader's permission. Secrets were secrets for a reason. And this was the second time one of Jaune's had been pulled out from the mud. But if the Lie's being honest with himself, it was bound to happen sooner or later.

Looking across their faces, Jaune almost wanted to laugh at the irony of it all. He was just about to reveal to them his Aura abilities in the team meeting later. Monty Oum _must_ be out to get him. That conspiracy theory of his definitely had some weight under it now.

Placing his bag of white Dust shards down, Jaune pushed his hair back, wondering where to begin. Probably the best place was the beginning. And even then he had trouble forming the right words.

"It's my Aura." Jaune began plainly, watching their mixed reactions. They don't seem to quite understand. "Let's just say I've learned to turn my Aura into a weapon. Like I'm sure you saw with Shooting Star back there?"

"Shooting Star?" Ren echoed, pushing his shades up.

"My Aura gun. It can shoots out balls of Aura," Jaune laughed awkwardly at seeing their stunned faces. "Here, take a look. I'll show you what a ball of Aura is. I don't have enough Aura to make anything else." Bringing out his palm, Jaune forced his remaining Aura to form a small Aura sphere in his palm, close to his chest and away from prying eyes.

It's all he could manage for the moment.

"Whoa!" Nora chimed, moving closer to get a better look. She had to put on her shades to not get blinded by the little ball of Aura. "That's so cool!"

Moving to touch it, Jaune willed away the Aura ball before she could make contact. "I wouldn't do that if I was you, Nora. It's not exactly something you can touch without getting hurt. Trust me... I think? I'm not exactly sure what would happen if _you_ touch it, I can. But the Grimm I've attacked today with it will vouch that it hurts!"

"Really?! Wow, Jaune! This is so—!"

"Is that how you got hurt?"

Stopping her energetic rant, Nora and the rest of Team JNPR turned to look at Pyrrha who'd a mixture of both sadness and hurt in her eyes. Her body's tense and there's an underline of emotion beneath it all. Their Fearless Leader appeared worried, distressed at his partner's sadness. There's no sense of happiness anywhere on her.

Jaune stepped forwards. "Pyrrha—?"

"There's dry blood on your face, Jaune." Pyrrha cut off, pointing out the dried specs of blood on his face and watching as Jaune rubbed his cheeks for an honest reaction. She glared accusingly at him. "Is that how you got that? By fighting a Grimm with your Aura? By fighting without your team?"

His silence was all the conformation she needed and she looked away. Jaune didn't really understand what's going on and Nora's about to intervene before Ren pulled her away, shaking his head. This was something they must work out between themselves. It's almost ironic considering fighting Grimm with Aura had been the foundation of Huntsmen history, but she still managed to make it sound downright awful.

Staring at the destroyed cargo tank with parts of its metal structure ripped to shreds, Pyrrha's thoughts drifted through the recent months. Her and Jaune's training became the centered memory, and upon seeing how easily he dispatched such a large mass of metal in less than a second made her wonder. Wonder about a lot of things.

Dangerous and heart-wrenching things.

Forming a fist, she finally glared back at her leader. "So this entire time you've been practicing with your Aura? Making weapons and fighting Grimm." Jaune didn't know what else to do but nod his head, unsure what she's getting at. The small silence only lasted so long. "Why didn't you tell us?"

 _Tell me?_

Those words made Jaune think. He did have a reason for all this. He did.

"At first I just wanted my own weapon, but eventually I just wanted to get stronger and my Aura gave me the chance to do so." Jaune admitted, feeling the rest of the world vanish between them. The truth behind his words felt soul lifting. "I wanted to be accepted here at Beacon. I didn't want to drag down the team and be a burden, anymore. And the only way to do that was to practice on my own. You guys had your own problems to worry about."

"You were never a burden—!"

"Yes I was!" The Arc argued, cutting her off, acting unbendable on the matter. He felt some of his Aura coming back, easing his sore muscles. Still, he had this Aura of sadness around him. "I was weak! I was a burden to our team! I was only going to hold us back! You all deserved a better leader and I wanted to be that leader— _needed_ to be that leader. And a team with a weak leader cant last too long!"

Pyrrha stepped forward, accepting the challenge thrown her way. "Then why didn't you ask for help? We all could've helped you?"

"Because I needed to do this on my own. That's why I trained alone..." he murmured, losing much strength in his voice. He gestured to the rest of Team JNPR, no longer stuck in their own little world. "I needed this to prove it to myself and to the Arc family name. We both knew I wasn't getting any better training together, we both _knew_ that. I had to find my own way to get stronger!"

Silent for a moment, Pyrrha's unsure how to feel. "You could've gotten—you _did_ get hurt."

Touching his cheek, he rummaged his fingers over the rough edges of the dried blood, remembering the moment when the Death Stalker had him in his grip. She was right. He did get hurt. But Jaune wasn't exactly seeing the real issue here. He's alive. He's _breathing_! And what's the point in trying to inspire to become a Huntsmen if he feared a little blood? This was what training to be a Huntsmen was all about. And he tried to move forward to tell her that, but of course his Aura exhaustion had taken its toll on him, limiting his movements.

Still, he tried to smile through the pain. "It's not as bad as it looks."

That set her off. "Not as bad as it looks... not as bad as it looks! _Look_ at you, Jaune! You can barely stand on your own two feet and there's blood on your face! And for what! Just so you can get stronger! Become a better leader? Who cares!" He couldn't say anything, Pyrrha's voice died in her throat. "We already accepted you as our leader. You lied to us... to me. Again."

He sighed, unable to meet her in the eyes. "Yea... I guess I did."

Feeling something fracture in her, Pyrrha simply ran away from her team, being fueled by sadness and something else. Jaune attempted to reach out toward her, but it's all in vain.

"Pyrrha, wait! Ugh!" Ren caught Jaune before he could fall, holding their Fearless Leader up by the shoulder. Nevertheless, Jaune tried to move, but his body had simply had enough. That last attack with Shooting Star robbed him of too much Aura. "Well... that didn't turn out anywhere near as I expected."

"Well, what did you expect, Jaune?" Ren calmly questioned, grabbing Jaune's Dust bag from the floor. "She just learned that you lied to her, again."

"I don't know?" He generally didn't. "I kinda guessed she would've been surprised, happy, and maybe a little mad, but not _that_ angry."

"I think Pyrrha's more hurt than mad because you lied to her." Nora poked with a sad smile, grabbing Jaune by the other shoulder. "She really trusted you, Jaune-Jaune."

Their leader settled into their hold, flaring a little. "Why? It's not like I was doing it to be mean. I wanted to be accepted. Besides, she lied to me too! Not telling me about my horrible progress in training is just as bad. But I didn't get mad at her."

"Yea..." Nora agreed, but hummed sadly in place. "But your Jaune, _you're not_ supposed to lie anymore. Pyrrha just didn't want to hurt your feelings."

"Not to mention seeing you about to be almost crushed, learning that you lied to her, training in secret, fighting Grimm on your own, having dried blood on your face, and the fact that Nora and I have to carry you back to Beacon probably pushed her a little too far." Ren informed, hiking Jaune more upright. "... She's been really worrying about you. Do I need to mention the times you skipped lunch or dinner?"

Sighing under his breath, their Fearless Leader threw Ren a condescending smile. "You know, you're pretty good at making people feel guilty. You know that, Ren?"

"It's a gift."

Their leader said nothing to that, both hating Ren's sarcastic wits and enjoying a few minutes of peace walking back to the airships for Beacon, too tired to even think of a proper explanation for his partner. Eventually, Jaune glanced at both Ren and Nora while a bit on edge, remembering they saw him using his Aura gun, too.

"Well, you're _both_ taking this surprisingly well?"

Nora laughed once again, patting their leader on the back. "Ren figured you had a reason for keeping a secret and expected you'll tell us when you were good and ready. But then we kinda saw you... you know."

"Yea..." he sighed. "I know. Can you do me a favor and not tell anyone about this?"

"Sure, Jaune." Agreed Ren, making sure Nora knew that meant her as well with a sideways glance. They spent another few more minutes walking until Nora got curious.

"So..." she grinned, rubbing her cheek on Jaune's. "Aura weapons! That's sounds awesome! I can't wait to see them!"

"That was the plan for the team meeting."

"Speaking of the team meeting... do I still have to go to that?"

...

Pyrrha didn't know where she's running off to. She didn't even understand why she's completely upset. But she was. She's hurt. And she's torn in the inside all over the place. There were a string of tears on the corner of her eyes and she had to wipe them away every few seconds.

All this time. All this worrying. And for absolutely _nothing_. Nothing!

All those smiles of his hadn't been fake. They were real! Real and true! She saw that power of his. That amazing and one-of-a-kind power. Turned out that Pyrrha's the only one who'd been fake smiling. Hiding behind a barrier. Proving once more of how much of an hindrance she'd been to her leader and partner. Maybe that's why she's mad and mostly disappointed in herself.

Disappointed at the thought while Jaune's been doing nothing but bettering himself, Pyrrha's been the one not lending a helping hand, trying to use a tactic that in the end achieved zero results. So he had been forced to take matters into his own hands because he couldn't trust her to help him achieve the results he longed for. He even called her out on his terrible training progression with complete understanding and acceptance. Why he's the one not angry at her was beyond a mystery to the champion. Pyrrha knew she deserved it. Knew it instinctively.

Yet, he smiled at her, anyways. Waving it off with no concern. Like he always did to whatever life decided to throw at him.

That alone proved to her how strong he'd gotten.

She should be proud. She is. Very much so. But it still hurt. It hurt more than she ever thought possible. Jaune's gotten stronger without her. But had he gotten strong enough? That's something that ticked at the back of her mind, smashing at the inside of her skull like Nora's hammer to an unsuspecting victim's legs over and over again until her head threatened to burst. She may have failed as a teacher, but Pyrrha still wanted to help. She wanted what was best for her first friend.

If nothing else, the least Pyrrha Nikos could do was test Jaune and determine if his strength proved strong enough for the Vytal Tournament. At least strong enough to compete and not get seriously hurt. Because angry or not, she still cared for the lovable goof. Seeing him get hurt wasn't something she wanted to see. Even in their field of profession.

Stopping her run, she wiped away the beginning tears, wondering on a thought that irked her to no end.

Did Jaune Arc ever really need her?

...

So it's safe to assume that Pyrrha's wouldn't be in their room when they got back. That's to be expected on a somewhat scale. Still didn't soothe Jaune's feelings any better when they're actually right.

Entering their room, Jaune scanned the room for any signs of his partner, hanging his head in defeat when there were no signs of her. He's too tired for this nonsense. His Aura had only slowly recharged since the incident with the Death Stalker and that strange black Aura.

Hn? Jaune almost forgot about that pitch black Aura. He'd have to look into that later. Pyrrha's intervention kind of robbed him of his thought process, but luck acted on his side. Still, if anything, it'd be only to see if he had or hadn't crossed the line that stemmed from Nora level insanity.

"She's not here..." Jaune stated with Ren letting go of him to toss his bag of Dust crystals besides Jaune's bed. "Where could she be?"

Nora carelessly tossed their leader straight down onto his bed, acting as the greatest teammate in all of Remnant. "Don't worry, Jaune! I'm sure Pyrrha's just going for a nighttime stroll!"

Yea, sure. Nighttime stroll. _That's_ what's she doing.

Jaune wanted to roll his eyes at the assumption, but decided against it. Nora had been nothing but helpful today and he figured— _knew_ that Ren wouldn't appreciate the gesture. Not after helping him get back to his team's room. Guy's as dangerous as he was mysterious. Made Blake look like Ruby and Ruby look like Zwei. Besides, he's running on zero Aura. He'd act braver with some Aura.

"Maybe." Jaune rolled with it, not even in the mood to change out of his clothes as his eyes began to drift from Aura exhaustion. "I'll just talk to her tomorrow. Too tired right now."

"Kay! Goodnight, Fearless Leader!"

"G'night."

A few minutes passed and Jaune hadn't quite been able to properly settle down and sleep with Nora constant moving in the room. But he's going to let it slide. Nora got to slide today for her wild shenanigans.

"I hope Jaune doesn't know it was my idea to go spying on him, Ren!" Nora suddenly whispered-yelled in the room, with a long sigh obviously coming from Ren as a response to his partner's antics.

Scratch that!

Grabbing a fistful of his bed sheets, Jaune took it all back.

He's going to steal Nora's pancakes tomorrow.

...

In the morning, Jaune woke up to find Pyrrha's bed sheets rumpled from obvious sleep, but no partner in plain sight. Her school uniform was missing, too. And both Ren and Nora were still sleeping. Surprisingly, she beat them up, a usual contender for sleeping in.

So she's avoiding him?

Message received.

The thought made his insides clench a little inside, forcing the blond to sit up on his bed and touch his chest. Normally, Jaune and Ren were up before their partners, Pyrrha's really pushing this _avoiding_ thing to a new level. He could feel his Aura acting up a little to his emotions and honestly, it worried him. His Aura shouldn't be acting up like this? He's supposed to have way better control than this!

Getting off his bed, he checked the time and noted that classes were starting in an hour. Plenty of time to ambush Pyrrha, get some breakfast, steal Nora's pancakes, and talk things through with her. Maybe even ask her why she's so upset about everything?

Still didn't make much sense to him?

Checking his outfit and fixing his damn tie, Jaune created a small ball of Aura a moment later, glad that his whole body felt fully energized and restored again. That improvement of controlled did wonders. And that's really saying something since creating an Aura ball was the simplest thing he could do with his Aura.

Willing away the Aura ball and pushing aside this recent turn of events for later, Jaune had other events to worry about. Needing to find Pyrrha, he walked over to sleeping Ren and a snoring Nora and thought about waking them before remembering Nora's not so known confession last night when they thought he was asleep.

Payback time.

Shifting his eyes between Nora and the door a few times, he came to a impulsive decision and slowly sneaked toward the door, closing it quietly on his way out. There's a full blown Yang level smile on his face as he walked down the halls of Beacon, fighting back a laugh.

Missing breakfast and her beloved pancakes, plus the possibilities of her first couple of classes should be punishment enough for Nora. Too bad he couldn't wake Ren up, though, but the guy would've stopped him before he made it out the door. And he's surprised he wasn't awake already, being an early riser such as himself. Poor guy must've burned more energy than he realized yesterday while he had been carrying him back to Beacon. Still, Jaune may have been the leader of the team, but Ren's loyalty to his Pancake Queen overthrew their Fearless Leader's by a wide margin.

Honestly, it's mutiny at its finest.

"Sorry Ren, not my partner, not my problem."

Jaune had his own partner problems to deal with.

...

It didn't take Jaune long to figure out that Pyrrha's not in the Mess Hall or the courtyard. She's nowhere except for Port's class when he walked in early and saw her sitting across the room. They make eye contact and then she lightly glared and looked away, suddenly finding her notebook more interesting than him. He would joke she's doing the same thing he'd done in the class with his own Aura notebook, but wisely pushed away the grin. Of course he brushed that off and sat next to her anyways, poking her on the side of her shoulder.

"Pyrrha?" Ignore. Jaune rolled his eyes this time, shaking her shoulder. "Hey! C'mon! Why are you so mad? I can explain if you just ask me!"

She made no effort to tear her eyes away from her notebook, rereading notes from Professor Port's ravenous lectures of his dashing youth. She almost seemed interested in those tales. It's pretty convincing actually. Guess all those Pumpkin Pete's cereal acting roles were paying off.

But Jaune Arc's no fool.

Beside the point, he shook her shoulder harder which she acted out by scooting away from _him_. Him! There's irony in there somewhere. Maybe if he looked hard enough he'd find it, next to common sense and sanity.

"Can you at least talk to me?" Jaune begged.

Nope!

 _Beep_! _Beep_!

Jaune couldn't get another question in as other students walked, at least he couldn't without making some sort of scene. So he settled to fall back in his chair, hanging his feet out in pure laziness. Maybe he could get her to talk in Dust class? There's no way she could talk to him there! It's foolproof!

As Professor Port walked in, jolly and all, Jaune paid zero attention in class that day and Pyrrha didn't once snap at him for it.

...

So it turned out she could avoid him in Dust class and there's no such thing as a foolproof plan.

Jaune forgot they could choose their own partners for Dust class, spicing it up as others say. She'd chosen Ruby again, leaving him with Weiss. Even worse, Nora spilled a few dials of Dust on the floor, creating a hole within the floor after arriving late to class with a slightly better rested Ren tagging along. And Jaune just knew as the Fearless Leader that it's his responsibility for any team related mishaps. Which in turn meant Professor Goodwitch was going to be looming over him in the near future.

Damn you, Nora!

"What's wrong with you?"

Putting down a vial of Dust he had zero interest in, Jaune turned to his side to see Weiss lightly glaring at him, adorable and all with her cheeks dimly puffed. Ruby's been a _different_ influence on her to say the least. Jaune would like to say it's an improvement if anything.

Not wanting to talk about it, he lightly shrugged. "Nothing."

Scoffing, she snatched the vial out from his hand while humphing all at once. "Fine, don't tell me."

Later she kicked him in the shin for lying.

It's a healthy relationship.

...

Eating lunch in their room, Jaune chewed slowly, not really feeling the mood to eat. The meal's bland and didn't look appealing. Apparently, Beacon's chefs had decided to go strike from some flour related mishap, so the food was unhealthy and just plain unpleasant. But he'd been skipping meals recently and it was best not to starve himself or Pyrrha might angrier at him more and then feel guilty later on.

"You okay?"

 _Page Flip_!

Swallowing his food, Jaune frowned over to Blake, who's looking over her book at him from his bed, eyes peering barely over the cover in cat-level curiosity. One would almost think she was a cat with her dog hatred and silent personality. Now wouldn't that be funny?

"Kinda..." he answered. Jaune didn't understand why, but speaking to Blake was easier than Weiss. As if she could be a counselor of sort? "Teammate problems."

"Oh..." she lowered her book more, studying him. "I know how that this. Just dealt with some teammate issues of my own... yesterday."

Tilting his head, Jaune couldn't help but wonder if that had something to do with the problem at the cargo bay the day before. Normally, Blake didn't pause her speeches like that or even talk much at all, always calm and collective. Must've been important? In an amusing way, he could relate to that. He liked that someone understood his problem.

"But I've atoned for my crimes." Blake continued, getting up from his bed and sitting beside him on Ren's.

"Atoned?"

She closed her book. "Atone, it means to make amends or reparation. In other words, to make up for past mistakes that eats away at you."

"... Like lying?"

"Exactly."

Placing his food down, Jaune glared at the poster covering the hole in the wall where he first shot Shooting Star. One of the starting points for his first steps to becoming a better Huntsmen and leader. To atone for his weakness.

"... Atone?"

"Yup." Blake nodded, popping the _P_. She then reopened her book, lying down on Ren's bed now. She's getting really comfortable in Team JNPR's room, having stashed away a few books of hers in their closet for later reading. But Team JNPR didn't need to know that.

Looking down at Blake, Jaune smiled. "You're being awfully nice today? Even being the first one to talk."

"Don't get used to it. I'm just in a good mood."

 _Page_ _Flip_!

...

Combat class passed uneventful with Jaune not really having the will to fight and Pyrrha still not saying a word to him. He still didn't know why she's so angry at him. But Jaune did the know he didn't want to be the poor fool to challenge Pyrrha today during class. That's plain suicidal.

At least he practiced his Space and learned Weiss's Aura color—icy blue obviously. Should've seen that coming. Her Aura was formal and defined if he had to choose a few words to describe it. And the amount of Space she emitted was on par that of her partner Ruby's. Too bad that didn't exactly say much about Ruby's level of skills considering Ren already beat her easily enough before. But forgetting that, Jaune took what little notes he could on Weiss's Aura.

He even got to see how her Semblance worked to an extent, noting on how and when her Semblance's Glyphs appeared, her Aura concentrated on the point of destination before materializing. Like a _beacon_ of sorts.

Ha!

That's two good puns, Yang.

Beat that!

...

History proved to be no different. The saying must've been true then. History really did repeat itself. And yet again Pyrrha was ignoring him.

No matter.

Doctor Oobleck's class was the one time of day he wanted zero eyes on him. Here, he could add in the Aura notes he'd been meaning to add since yesterday, like Space and that pitch-black stuff. Anything discovered needed to be documented, and Jaune was meticulous when it came to Aura discoveries. Now, though, Ren noticed him writing in his notebook, perplexed by his dedication to writing, more so than Nora's refusal to pay any attention to the lecture. The Lie planned to ask once the fracture in the team had been repaired. Maybe sooner if Jaune happened to bring it up.

...

It's not until Jaune returned to his team's room, around sundown, that he received a message from Ren, telling him to meet him in the courtyard by the fountain. By then Blake's already in his room, reading some old book about fairy tales of the past. She liked those types of stories. Why? He couldn't possibly fathom.

He let himself out, telling her to enjoy herself and not to touch anything Nora related. The usual go around.

She answered with a simple nod and got lost in a tale about a girl walking through some wolf-infested forest. Jaune didn't know. He only knew of the Arc tales his parents told him about his ancestors. They made sure he knew them by heart by the time he could run and lift a sword.

Walking toward the fountain, Jaune found Ren hanging beside the water, starring at the reflection. It's only moments later that he realized that Ren's missing Nora. Strange? They're always together. Not together-together, but together.

"Hey, Ren!" Jaune waved, running up beside his fellow male with a joking tone. "What's up? What's the emergency?"

"It's Pyrrha." Ren answered strongly, severely killing the joke. "She's in Emerald Forest, training. Nora's with her and she says Pyrrha's really pushing herself hard."

The smile died from Jaune's face. "Oh?"

"We best go stop her."

Meanwhile, at some edge of Emerald Forest, Pyrrha swung her weapon across the air, practicing her stances and muttering incoherent things. Nora's sitting on a rock, a small frown accompanying her usual joyful face, watching her Fearless Leader's partner push herself too hard.

"Pyrrha!" Nora yelled. "Shouldn't you take a break?"

Pyrrha either ignored her or didn't hear her all together, muttering things like _lying fools_ or _careless leaders_ over and over again.

It's only until Jaune entered the clearing and yelled out to her that she stopped practicing. "Pyrrha!"

Halting her attack, she gripped her weapon and shield and turned around to be confronted with Jaune running up to her. Ren had broken away, taking his rightful spot next to Nora and sitting on the rock with her. But as far as she's concerned, it's only Jaune standing right in front of her, looking positively worried.

He moved toward her, only be halted by her hand. "Pyrrha? C'mon... you haven't talked to me all day and you've been avoiding me. Just tell what's wrong. I'm no good at this."

Studying his innocent face, she lowered her head, and tightened the grip on her weapon, not wanting to meet him in the eyes. Seconds pass before she finally breathed again, allowing her voice to come forth.

"You lied."

At that, Jaune sighed in relief from hearing her talk to him, smiling a little. Then he rubbed the side of his neck, looking guilty. "I know I lied. Look, I'm sorry for not telling you about me learning how to control Aura. I just wanted to—!"

"That's not the lie I'm talking about."

Pausing, Jaune tried to think over what she said. "... I don't understand."

Looking up, her eyes burned with hurt and fury, this time she took a step forward. The memory of Jaune practically destroying that cargo tank flashed back to her, only fueling the intense heat in her chest and reminding her why she's mad. Why this all matters to her! Why she's doing _this_ and not simply letting it go! Her clueless leader had garnered that power from lying, and she hated that. Nothing good could ever come from lying, or so she believed. It both awed and tested her resolve.

"You want to know what I'm talking about. Fine then. Earlier you promised me you've gotten stronger. Told me not to worry. Then prove it to me." Lifting her weapon, she pointed Miló directly at Jaune. "Show me how much stronger you've gotten! Prove to me that you're _not_ a liar!"

The champion had but one goal, she wanted to see if all the lying proved worthwhile.

Eyes wide, no one said anything for a while, too completely stunned from her sudden challenge. Nora's gripping Ren by the neck, using him almost as a wall to lean on and Jaune's stuck in place, lost. Time passed and Pyrrha's almost about to lower her weapon and walk away from his lack of response, completely heartbroken, but he stopped her by taking his own step forward and pushing Miló back up.

Silent, Team JNPR watched in amazement as Jaune's Aura seems to revitalize around him, gripping close to his body in a color of pure white before dying. The entire time, Jaune's thinking of all the pain he must've caused Pyrrha. He didn't know _exactly_ what pain he'd caused, but he knew in some way it's his fault. And Pyrrha didn't deserve any of that.

If fighting her was what it took to get her to talk to him and fix all this—then fine!

He'd fight her.

Reaching out with his right hand, Jaune slowly concentrated until an Aura sphere condensed within his palm, glowing brightly for his team to awe. Moments later, it shined brighter, disappearing in a flash of light before a blade of pure white Aura glowed in his hand, shining a radiant sword of innocent snow.

"Atone... Excalibur."

* * *

 **Author Notes:** Edited **\- 11/05/2017**


	7. Graphite

**Disclaimer:** I own nothing of RWBY.

* * *

 **Graphite**

 **By: Imyoshi**

No matter how he held Excalibur—it _always_ felt right.

In truth, Jaune admitted he'd never get quite use to summoning Excalibur.

The rush of power he felt when he called upon the Aura blade was like a drug that's both addictive yet subtle.

And it's all the more satisfying since Excalibur was his blade. His creation. His _weapon_.

Lowering his arm, Jaune relaxed his posture, mildly enjoying the way Pyrrha's staring at Excalibur in what could only be described as clear shock. He's more than certain that Nora's eyes were widening in pure, childlike amazement. Ren's probably only showing barest hint of emotion, brows possibly raised in fascination. And the emotions he felt from that made the Arc aim Excalibur directly at Pyrrha, grinning all the way, just like the true Fearless Leader of Team JNPR should.

He's not going to lie; it's kind of nice being the one _causing_ the shock rather than it being the other way around. It got old being the one asking questions.

"Ren! Look!"

Across the field, Nora's practically leaning and pushing Ren as hard as possible from her hold on his neck, excitement too powerful to quell. The Lie didn't seem interested in stopping her, being the tree for Nora to sloth on. Ren just calmly grabbed her by the legs and pulled them forward, and Nora responded almost immediately by wrapping her legs around his torso, hugging him closely in unquenchable excitement. Her grip tightened around his neck, and if Ren minded her body pressed intimately to his, he didn't react to it.

"So that's what an Excalibur looks like?!" Nora smiled, pointing directly at the bright blade in Jaune-Jaune's hand. "It's so bright!"

Ren stared in slight awe. She's absolutely right. Though _bright_ was a clear understatement of the word. The sword was unnaturally reminiscent in the forest. It should be considered a crime for them never noticing Jaune practicing with _that_ sword. But striking that, not much else could be said about Jaune's weapon appearance wise. He did note that it's longer than Crocea Mors and the hilt resembled the Arc's family crescent arcs, floating away from the longsword-shaped blade as an acting hilt guard. How it maintained that shape Ren didn't know.

Besides that, he couldn't really point out any real distinguishable features about Excalibur. All else that could be said were the sword's glaring properties of being condensed out of white Aura with a polar shine that could make the stars weep in envy. Everything else, function wise, remained a complete mystery.

"Well? That's something you don't see everyday. And it's definitely different?" Ren commented offhandedly, feeling Nora brushing her cheek against his. "I wonder if it can do anything special."

"Like shoot lasers?!"

Ren had no inkling to correct her for such a crazy idea. As far as he knew, it _could_ shoot lasers. And he doubted Nora's listening to him anymore as she persistently swayed in place, using his body as a comfy, silent pillow. She's completely focused on the _awesome_ weapon in their Fearless Leader's hands. He could only imagine what kind of new picture Jaune's painting for Nora as the leader of Team JNPR. Whatever headache-inducing trauma Ren pictured for future couldn't possibly compare to what her limitless imagination could conjure up. And that greatly troubled him.

Recovering from the surprise, Pyrrha's eyes hardened again, gripping Miló above her neck to shield some of the brightness away from Jaune's sword. She had questions. She had _many_ questions. Little things anyone would ask. Like how the brightness didn't seem to bother him. The Invincible Girl alone had trouble glaring at her leader's position, very less his supposed weapon. All the other little things she wanted to ask were honestly beyond her scope of understanding.

"You wanted to me to prove to you I've gotten stronger, right? All the lying? All the secrets? You want to see if it was all worth it?" Tilting Excalibur in his hand, Jaune lowered the brightness of his sword, moving into a battle position Pyrrha had drilled into him. He felt his Aura awakening every part of his soul and expanding his muscles. "Then I'll prove it you."

Knowing nothing about how her partner's weapon worked, Pyrrha lifted her shield to cover a good portion of her upper body, and held her sword close to her midriff. Everything from this point onward was going to be a surprise for her. And she waited to see if Jaune created any other unique weapons, but he did no such thing. Either he had little else to offer or he was leading her into a false sense of security. There's only one way to find out.

Gripping Excalibur tighter, Jaune finally felt every part of his body receiving Aura, enhancing his reflexes to a heightened degree of control. "Let's go then."

 _Space_!

And it was at that moment that Jaune felt Pyrrha's Space hit him. Unlike everyone else's Space, hers was on a whole different league. It wasn't as strong as Yang's when the brawler was actively using her Semblance to amp her power up to unnatural proportions, nor did she outweigh Professor Goodwitch's fierce tenacity, but it did beat everyone's force on the base level, except for their professors. And her _blood_ Aura was undoubtedly calm, yet fierce, like a seasoned warrior. It clung to her body like a liquid metal, hardening and then softening in a mix between states of matter. Her blood Aura really did look like blood, but it acted as a metal.

Simply astounding.

He wished he could truly appreciate just how powerful his partner really was, but she's already moving in for the first strike, lunging forward with a devastating charge. Jaune barely had time to intercept her blade with his, awkwardly angling his hand placement from the preemptive blow. The force behind her attack was more than enough to force the Arc back, skidding him across the forest floor with a small trail of dirt following the soles of his shoes. He had to dig his heels deep into the dirt to hold her back.

Surprised with her tremendous strength, Jaune ignored Pyrrha's Space and this time was ready to intercept her second slash. And third. And then fourth. Fifth. And so on and so forth. Whenever she aimed for his shoulder, he lifted Excalibur from underneath to parry the sword. Any attack aimed for his torso was met with a down-angled tilt of the blade. It was close-quarters swordplay that went on for a good minute, until Pyrrha bashed his chin in with her shield and elbowed him in the ribs. Then she grabbed him by the arm and tossed him over her shoulder, tossing her shield for a follow-up, only for Jaune to regain his footing and flick away Akoúo̱ back to his partner.

A quick rub of his jaw for damage check was what she allowed for him, before speeding across the clearing to meet his weapon.

Their blades crossed again with each of them trying to overpower each other, and during the power struggle, Jaune could see that Pyrrha's shield was coated in her blood Aura, somewhat like the way Ren had done to Ruby's weapon, but he barely had time to study that oddity before Pyrrha's pushing him back with some tremendous strength. He had no idea where her power was coming from. One minute he's holding his own between the power struggle, and the next he's being pushed back almost effortlessly.

Compared to training, the difference between that Pyrrha and this one was as noticeable as night and day.

Running on pure instinct, Jaune covered his hand in Aura and grabbed Pyrrha's sword, holding and pushing it aside to give him an opening for a quick strike. Her eyes widened at the tactic, not realizing his Aura's powerful enough for such bold strategies, and she's forced to bring up her shield to intercept, hearing the unusual sound of Aura clashing with metal. But before she could go for the counter, her shield began to crack in small places, starting from the very spot where Excalibur had intercepted. No time's given for a warning, and Jaune's Aura blade managed to cleanly cut right through her entire shield, barely cutting the side of her cheek in the process. It's only due to toned reflexes that she dodged the blade.

Apparently, the move had surprised him as well as she's given a small opening to lunge back to inspect her broken Akoúo̱.

There's also a small burning sensation coming from her cheek, but she ignored all that to watch as Akoúo̱ fell from her arm protector, splitting in two from a perfectly clean cut. Like a knife going through butter. There's a small inclination of burn from where the cut had traveled through, a clear indication of intense heat. Just seeing her beloved shield destroyed made her chest hurt in the inside.

That shield had been with her ever since the beginning.

While Pyrrha mourned, Jaune used the quick stalemate to study and learn. His mind was noting how easily Excalibur sliced right through Pyrrha's shield, but that wasn't all he had observed. The _how_ behind it begged to be questioned. How come when he clashed swords with her, her sword didn't break either? That's what he's truly wondering over, considering it strange since he so easily destroyed his partner's shield in a single swing. It's all so new to the Arc since he'd never once practiced Excalibur on anything but trees and Grimm before.

Across from the stunned fighters, Nora's leaning more on Ren, poking her partner on the side multiple times.

"Ren?" Nora booped, asking her source of infinite knowledge once more. Her eyes were clouded in absolute wonder. "What happened to Pyrrha's shield? It just broke in two!"

Studying the clean cut straight down the path his leader had brought down his sword, Ren hummed, blinking once. "I don't know, Nora. I guess we'll have to keep watching to find out."

Nora pouted, thinking maybe she needed to get herself a new source of infinite knowledge. This one was broken. She then grinned, shaking, which in turn shook Ren as well. "Isn't Jaune-Jaune's sword so cool?! I want one! You'll think he'll make one for me?"

Ren answered her question with a small, stoic boop to her nose, keenly focused on studying how Pyrrha's shield just fell to Jaune's blade. "Maybe."

Blocking out Nora's rambling on how _totally amazing their Fearless Leader was_ , Ren studied the confused expression on Jaune's face, noting how their leader didn't seem to know what happened either. Whatever reaction occurred between her shield and his sword had been an anomaly in the possibilities his leader conceived. In other words, he's still learning all this. And whatever just happened right now was nothing short of an enigma.

Now that's an interesting afterthought.

Seeing Pyrrha sadden expression, Jaune loosened his grip on Excalibur and moved forward to try and console her. "Pyrrha, I—?"

"This fight isn't over!" she yelled, raising her weapon. She'd have to mourn over Akoúo̱ later. If she stopped fighting now, then her precious shield would've fallen for nothing. "Get ready, Jaune!"

"Great. Just my luck." Jaune sighed at seeing how hard that must've hit Pyrrha. Now he felt like a total jerk for breaking her shield. He didn't even mean to cut it—okay, maybe he did—but he certainly didn't think it would work! Her sword held up just fine! Why didn't her shield? "Ready when you are."

Tightening his grip on Excalibur, he grabbed the Aura blade with both hands and accepted her challenge, this time being the first one to attack. Pyrrha narrowed her eyes at his advancement, and jerked her body a bit back just in case Jaune's sword cut right through Miló as well. She held her sword with both hands, prepared to push him back. Again their swords collide, some sparks fly, and luckily her sword didn't falter to Jaune's bright blade. Although, the force behind Jaune's strike forced her to crouch, unprepared for his sudden newfound strength.

Where was this power during their nightly sparring sessions?

Pushing her back, he freed one hand and attempted to grab her blade once more, but Pyrrha did something different this time. Space allowed him to see her weapon being covered in a layer of Aura, but not entirely. It's not exactly like the fierce blood Aura that covered her entire body, but a thin sheet of blood energy that swiftly seeped into the metal, suddenly giving her unknown strength. There's no mistaking it, this time it's exactly like the time when Ren added something to Ruby's weapon, something that resembled Aura but wasn't entirely, and he saw the strange not-Aura power coating her weapon in a thin sheet of blood.

It had to be her Semblance.

Whatever it was, it was forcing him to jump back from her newfound strength. And when she flicked his blade away, he narrowly dodged a swipe aimed for his shoulder, having sidestepped out of the way. Her onslaught, however, didn't end there. Like before, they tangle in close-up swordplay with his Aura heightened sense picking up his slack, intercepting most of her strikes. But she's still landing cuts here and there, small as they may be. The speed with which she moved proved to be faster than before.

Each parry had Jaune paying close attention to how that strange energy not only affected her sword, but other parts of her outfit. Like her armor and metal leggings. Depending on what she did, or what he did, the bloody power glowed in retaliation, and not in the way Aura glowed in response to instinct. And every single time it reacted within those areas, Pyrrha proceeded to do some pretty incredible feats. Feats that put her on a pedestal compared to the other Huntsmen-in-Training. Feats that dubbed her a champion for a reason. Feats that Jaune had a pretty difficult time believing.

Moving in insane speeds for one thing.

Which, now, if he thought hard enough about it, that armor she's wearing shouldn't be allowing her bend and move the way she did. It's also surprising how she could move so fast with so much heavy armor on—not matching Ruby's ridiculous speed of course—but still dauntingly fast nonetheless. And even if he wasn't the brightest Dust crystal in the bunch, Jaune knew that the force behind her swings didn't quite match up to the amount of Space she's emitting. None of it was adding up. Not by a long-shot.

But it's not until Jaune grabbed her forearm, where her shield normally resided, did he learn what Pyrrha had been doing under his nose. At first he had been overpowering her strength with his Aura enhanced muscles, but when that strange energy entered her metal armguard and _not_ her arm, did Jaune finally see a vague connection. Between only reacting within certain parts of her body, it really acted like Ren's strange Semblance.

Tilting his head, he clashed blades once more and glared as the energy entered her sword, instead of her arm, while her other arm with the metal armguard and metal bracket on her shoulder was receiving the same energy. His glare intensified as the energy moved to her leggings and parts of her corset, firmly locking in place between the gold metalworking. She's then gaining immense footing versus his Aura body, quickly overpowering his Aura with the second stage of power he had yet to unlock.

Oh! Okay! Now he finally got it. Now he's finally piecing the puzzle together. Now it all made sense from where her speed, reflexives, bending, and her inhumane strength came from. Sort of. This still might end up as a wild guess if nothing else, but he felt confident in his assumption. If this had been a little more than two months ago, Jaune wouldn't have been able to piece the puzzle together so fluently. Now, however, he's a lot more focused from all his studying and note-taking thanks to his Aura training and need to learn.

Knowledge was his ally and learning was his specialty.

Breaking their hold by sweeping part of her leg, he attempted to slash at her stomach, but Pyrrha jumped back with the help from the same energy giving her a boost on her metal leggings and armor-plating around her corset, only strengthening his conclusion. And before Pyrrha could go for the counterattack, Jaune relaxed his stance and grinned at her, totally amazed.

"I didn't know you can control metal?"

Eyes widening, Pyrrha suddenly stopped running at Jaune, leaving a trail of dust behind her. She couldn't help but glare at his innocent smile, wondering how Jaune figured out her Semblance. She knew no one told him, making sure her team and Team RWBY not spill after the Cardin incident or it would destroy his confidence, but he somehow figured out, anyways. And what irked her so much was his ability to figure it out the first time she applied it in combat with him. Not even spectators ever figured out her Semblance.

But he did in a few short minutes of combat.

"That's pretty awesome, Pyrrha!" Jaune laughed like they weren't just fighting a few moments ago. "No wonder you could do so many amazing things! That's probably how you won all those tournaments, too."

Finding her voice again, she stepped forward. "How did you figure it out?"

Hearing her question, he looked down at Excalibur and then back at her and her Aura armor that covered her body. Her Aura's not covering her sword he noticed, but waved that off as unimportant. Now how exactly should he answer that question? Too many variables to account for. There were secrets he needed to expose. And he rather not go into full-length on how his Aura control worked, not while in the midst of battle at least.

Shrugging, he smiled again at her.

"I'll tell you if you win." Jaune knew he's being arrogant here, but after figuring out her Semblance and destroying her shield, he figured he'd earned it. On the other hand, Pyrrha obviously didn't like his answer as she glared at him again, switching Miló to long-range mode.

Barely dodging a Dust bullet to the arm, Jaune saw Pyrrha aiming at him, getting ready to fire a second round.

Oh? They're shooting guns now?

Fine then!

Holding Excalibur above his chest to protect his head, Jaune easily ignored the light coming from his blade as he held his other hand out forward for his teammates to see. And just like yesterday, they see him create a ball of white Aura in his hand, only slightly larger and completely stable. Then he created a second, twirling them in his hand for Nora to enjoy before absorbing the Aura orbs into his palm. What followed was Jaune recreating Shooting Star, aiming his hand directly at Pyrrha.

No one moved for a brief moment with only the sound of some passing wind to keep them company.

"Ren?" Nora whispered. "What's happen—?"

"Soar, Shooting Star!"

Nora and Ren watched as a ball of white condensed between Jaune's fingers, before firing directly at Pyrrha. Too stunned to move, their invincible teammate reacted by extending her arm out to her broken Akoúo̱, right before the Aura ball almost came in direct contact with her.

No point in hiding her Semblance now.

Pulling her shield, she used her Semblance to reconnect the metal together just as the Aura ball clashed against the steel. It held up to an extent, but then the Aura ball exploded in a flash of white when she added Aura to her shield, blinding the girl and the other occupants. When the brightness died, she couldn't feel any form of Akoúo̱ left. Every piece of metal she normally reached out for was simply missing— _gone_.

Opening her eyes, all Pyrrha could see were her hands held outward for when she called out and put together her shield. The air remained empty. There was nothing left except for small fragments of metal here and there on the floor, burnt, charred, and destroyed. And the pieces that did remain had a small wisp of heat edged at the end of the metal. Now all she had left was Jaune aiming his hand directly at her.

He's not firing at her, their leader was just standing there, staring at where her shield used to be, a strange look of interest capturing his features. He didn't appear scared, only interested in the recent development.

Having seen Pyrrha call upon her shield hadn't surprised Jaune since he witnessed her use her Semblance to grab the metal. No. It's what she did that didn't allow him the pleasure of firing his second ball of Aura. Akoúo̱ had been holding up pretty well against Shooting Star, Jaune had observed, until Pyrrha added Aura to her shield. That's what's stopping him from firing his second shot.

Her shield had been completely eradicated when she added Aura to it. Using the energy from her Semblance had been fine since it wasn't exactly Aura, as far as he could tell, but the moment she added Aura, his Aura sphere tore apart Akoúo̱ like nothing. Just like when he cut right through her shield with Excalibur or when he fired Shooting Star through trees or Grimm. However, this was still the first time he'd ever tested his Aura blade against Aura before. And so far, the results didn't bold to well for his partner.

"Pyrrha..." Jaune warned, willing away Excalibur. He'd come to a dangerous theory and he didn't exactly want to test it out on his partner. "I think we should stop now."

"Why?" Lowering her arms, Pyrrha held out her weapon, switching it to back to a sword. She moved forward, getting into a battle stance. "This fight's not yet over."

"I don't think it's a good idea. I mean, c'mon, look!" Jaune pointed at whatever remained of her shield on the floor. "I caused that! I did that! _Me_! And it's all because of this!" He created a lone sphere of Aura in his palm. "This... did that."

Pyrrha didn't look convinced. The Space she had was growing stronger and Jaune saw her blood Aura flaring in response. Maybe he needed to approach this from a different angle. Part of him wondered if her champion pride had been wounded. Jaune Arc _knew_ a thing or two about wounded pride. It made people do crazy things and pushed to even more insane heights.

"You asked how I figured out your Semblance, right?" Jaune didn't bother to wait for her to respond, instead absorbing his Aura sphere. "I saw you using your Semblance on your armor."

This time her Aura calmed down. "What?"

Spinning one hand in the air lazily, he half shrugged with the other. "I really don't know how to explain it better than that. When I'm using my Aura... it just... sort of appears. Like around you."

Pyrrha pursed her lips. "That's not very helpful, Jaune."

"Give me a break!" he cried, throwing his hands up. "I'm still learning this as I go along. It's crazy! I know! But I figured out your Semblance, didn't I? So it's not totally crazy!"

She couldn't deny that.

"I guess..." she agreed, but then pushed that aside. "But what does have to do with our fight?"

"Everything!" The raising of her brows asked for him to elaborate. "You saw how Excalibur cut your shield in half! And then you saw how Shooting Star totally ruined the rest?" Pyrrha nodded to those claims. "Well... I saw you using Aura on them before that happened. But it wasn't until you used Aura on your shield did I notice my Aura ball actually destroying your shield." Jaune sighed. "It seems any Aura my attacks comes in contact with completely destroys them in their path."

Pyrrha inclined her stance a bit, staring down at her sword before looking back at Jaune. "And you're sure?"

"Well... no... I would like to test that—but it's not something I want to test on you!" Jaune hastily added, holding up his hands in surrender. "It's not that I don't want to fight! I just don't want to hurt you!"

Don't get the Arc wrong, the Space Pyrrha's emitting was still strong as ever. She'd hardly used any Aura and he still hadn't landed a clean, single attack on her yet, while he had multiple cuts from her. But after seeing the amount of damage his Aura attacks were causing and what he guessed was personally causing them, he's too afraid to continue on going, not wanting to see the aftermath from a direct hit with his Aura weapons on his partner's body.

He'd rather have her mad at him then have her painfully hurt.

Glaring down at a charred remains of her shield, Pyrrha examined the metal before carelessly kicking it away, feeling her mood getting considerable better. She almost felt like he'd proven himself to her. But no. Not yet.

 _Not yet_.

Holding Miló to eye level, she tilted the weapon in her hand, brows drawn. "So what you're saying... Jaune... is don't use Aura on my weapons when I'm fighting you?" Twirling the sword, she prepared herself. "Very well, let's continue."

"What?!" he denied with arms out. "No! That's not what I'm saying at all! I just don't think it's a good idea!"

Frowning, she's about to rebuttal when a small burning sensations burrowed from her cheek. Not knowing her adrenaline had simmered down, having hid the pain; Pyrrha gently touched the side of her cheek where Jaune had narrowly cut her with his sword. That same hot burning feeling was back from earlier. And it stung.

Rubbing the side of her face, she found the sensation not going away. Merciful, the burning's not too intense, but the feeling's annoying nonetheless. It's not until she drew small specs of blood that she started to panic a bit.

"Why hasn't my Aura taken care of this small problem yet?" Pyrrha mumbled, concentrating her Aura to that part of her face. She narrowed her eyes right after, unable to sense her Aura centering on the cut. Like at all. "What's going on?"

Messing with the cut, Jaune's stuck watching her mess with her cheek, rubbing it furiously. "Pyrrha, are you okay?"

Pyrrha stopped trying to solve the problem with her injury, remembering that it was in fact Jaune who had cut her there with his Aura blade. When she recalled that, her thoughts drift back to his earlier claim about his Aura attacks destroying anything Aura related. And she moved her hand away from her face, staring at the specs of blood in her hand in sheer fascination. The red liquid didn't scare her.

"My wound's not healing." Pyrrha said bluntly, quickly getting use to the burning.

"What?"

Clenching her fist, Pyrrha actually felt a little better, and then she felt a whole lot worse. She pointed at her cut. "The wound on my cheek isn't healing where you cut me."

"I cut you there?"

"Yes, but barely. It's nothing more than a small scratch..." she informed him, finding the entire situation rather unique. She felt curious at what else his sword could do. "So now anything cut by your blade doesn't heal, either? What else does that blade do that you have yet to tell me?"

A little stunned at hearing her new claim, Jaune concentrated a little of his Aura to get a better look at her Aura and note anything worth noting. "Like I said, I'm still learning this as I go along."

Upon first inspection, her Aura appeared fine, still very variant and alive, but then Jaune focused on where she said he cut her apparently. And through a little bit of concentration, he could see a scratch line right where she had pointed at on her Aura. It's small and barely noticeable, but he could tell that none of her Aura was actually reaching that small incision, thus not allowing her wound to be properly healed by her Aura. Like a chip or crack in a suit of armor, it was impossible to unseen once found.

Jaune couldn't help but allow his eyes to widen in excitement.

It's all so fascinating!

There's just so much about Aura that he had yet to learn.

Looking for his Aura notebook, only to remember he left it back in their room, Jaune sighed under his breath when the weight of the meaning behind this finally settled down on him. "Okay... now I really don't want to fight you anymore."

Pyrrha was going to have none of that. "Well this fight's still not over yet. Prepare yourself, Jaune."

Unbelievable.

Hiding his face in his hands, Jaune eventually threw his head back in frustration. This was seriously getting old _real fast_. His father always did say a woman scorned was practically an unstoppable force, but he never took his old man's advice seriously until now. Besides his confidence lessons. Besides those.

"I don't even know why you're mad still?! Haven't I proved I'm strong enough yet?!" For once Jaune could feel his Aura flaring wildly, lacking its usual control. It'd never occurred to him to look in a mirror and see his own Aura until now. "What more do you want?"

Channeling her Aura everywhere but her sword, Pyrrha began to concentrate her Semblance to her leggings, preparing to lunge forward. And Jaune, throughout the entire exchange, saw all of this. None of it was a surprise for him. She couldn't get the upper hand on a sneak attack even if she tried with all her might. Not with the regions of Space opened to his eyes.

"No, you haven't yet, Jaune." Pyrrha answered. "Not yet."

"Then when?!"

Lost in their argument, no one noticed an Ursa Major sneak up on Ren and Nora from behind until its shadow illuminated over them. It's Ren's _gasp_ that attracted everyone's attention and forced them to turn and see the Grimm about to swipe its claws on Ren and Nora. Too bad for the Grimm it never got to finish as a ball of Aura pierced it's chest, flying out the other side and into the setting sky. The Grimm barely had time to acknowledge the white-burning pain in its chest before it fell over and died die, deteriorating away into nothing but ash.

"How about now?" Jaune demanded, creating another ball of Aura in his palm for all to see. He didn't appear shaken up by the Grimm's presence at all. "Am I strong enough now? Do I need to kill more Grimm? Because I will! Trust me, there's plenty around here. I know."

Unable to peel her eyes away from the dying Ursa Major, Pyrrha recounted the last time Jaune killed an Ursa Major those few months ago. At the time, it had taken all his willpower and strength to finish off the Grimm. Now, now he didn't even bother giving the dying beast a glimpse as it withered away in its final moments. No passing glance. No feeling. Nothing. _Absolutely nothing_!

Their leader sure had changed.

But was it enough?

Glaring back at Jaune, Pyrrha lunged forward. "No."

Prepared since he saw her channeling her Semblance, Jaune parried her swipe toward his chest with a quick summon of Excalibur. Their blades clash and Jaune sighed in relief from seeing no Aura anywhere in her sword. Although, now he could certainly see the cut on her cheek with how close they were. And she's certainly right. Her Aura clearly wasn't reaching that spot.

Deflecting her next attempt to slash his forearm, Jaune tried to aim for a clean cut on her leg, only to be met with air as Pyrrha evaded to the side, bringing down her sword for a quick slash on his shoulder. They both pause to stare at the harsh wound before his Aura clearly closed up the injury in mere seconds. And as awesome as that was; now he's going to need a new hoodie. Those small cuts may have been easy to fix, but this pretty much ruined the hoodie.

Bringing one foot back, Jaune thrust forward Excalibur, intent to hit any part of Pyrrha's metal armor. She brought her sword to slide against his, twisting the blade in her hand to travel up his sword for a counter measure. Her sword traveled up the blade up, leaving a trail of sparks, toward his fingers where Excalibur's hilt kept her from getting any closer.

Jaune retaliated by attempting to grab her wrist in the deadlock and point Excalibur at her neck. He only got as far as grabbing her wrist before her arm wearing the metal bracelet and armguard was on the offensive, landing a quick, strong jab to his stomach—face—stomach again—and then a sneaky sweep kick to throw him off his balance and hard on the grassy floor.

It's only thanks to Jaune's Aura enhanced reflexes that he brought up Excalibur on time to meet Pyrrha's weapon, using every ounce of will power he had to push back her blade before rolling to the side, using Excalibur as a staff to stand on for a moment. The blade effortlessly dug into the gravel with his added weight. And Jaune's not going to lie, he's tired.

His body's starting to get sore all over.

Fighting Pyrrha was majorly different compared to fighting a Grimm. She actually blocked his slashes and made really good counterattacks.

He almost felt totally outmatched— _almost_.

...

"Hey, Ren?"

"Yes, Nora?" Ren answered, never letting his eyes leave the fight. "What is it?"

His partner hummed for a little bit, resting her chin above his head, increasing her hold on his neck, undoubtedly pouting from her lack of understanding. Ren's hair tickled her chin and she held back an adorable puff of air.

"How come Jaune-Jaune's so strong?"

This time he did look up to his childhood friend. "What do you mean?"

Tilting her head, she pointed lazily at the fighting duo, leaning closer to point out each little thing she meant. "Well... I don't get it. He has never been this strong before. Just last week he got his butt kicked in training with Pyrrha. Now he's all fast and strong and stuff. It doesn't make any sense."

Thinking about her question, he watched as Jaune took a nasty kick to the side, but then he saw him impale his Aura blade into the floor to stop himself from flying across the field and lower his momentum. "It's his Aura."

"Hmm... you're losing me, Ren."

Chuckling a little from her lack of simply getting it, Ren pointed at Jaune's Aura blade, mildly impressed at him holding his own with Pyrrha so far. It's as though their leader was a whole different person when wielding Excalibur.

"You know how I fought against that King Taijitu during initiation?" Feeling the nod from her head, he continued. "Well, it's the same concept for Jaune here. His Aura is making him faster and stronger, enough to actually almost meet Pyrrha as an equal."

Nora pondered over Ren's words for a minute, eventually shaking her head. "That still doesn't make any sense, Ren! No one's Aura should make them that strong! He still needs to train... doesn't he?"

"Of course he still trains. Remember, he practices with Pyrrha on most nights." Ren added, watching Jaune quickly jump back up from a sudden sweep kick from Pyrrha. "But you must also see that Jaune's Aura control is something we've never ever even heard of before. I've never read of someone creating a weapon out of Aura before. And I know you haven't."

"And that makes him stronger?"

Seeing Jaune overpower Pyrrha between a clash of swords, he calmly went on. "Yes. I'm not even going to assume I understand what level of Aura control someone must have to create an Aura weapon, but I can assume that Jaune's level of Aura control far out ranks ours. That level of control probably enhances his reflexes and improves his muscle and footwork to unimaginable levels."

Of course he's all just assuming from what he'd observed so far. But in the grand schemes of things, and his current knowledge of Aura control, Lie Ren felt like he had a good grasp on the concepts of his Fearless Leader's Aura control.

Nora glanced down at Ren, still very much confused. "But don't you think it would be hard to make a sword out of Aura and fight against someone with it while trying to concentrate? It's gotta be hard!"

Nudging Nora to look up, they see Jaune forming an Aura sphere in response to her switching to long-range again. He quickly fired Shooting Star at her feet to cause a small dust cloud before summoning Excalibur once more and lunging at a distracted Pyrrha. "I don't think Jaune's has a problem with his Aura control."

Nora didn't seem completely satisfied with that answer as they saw Pyrrha intercept Jaune's blade at the last minute, using one hand to grip the edge of her sword to hold back the force behind their leader's attack. "Isn't that kinda unfair?"

Thinking over her question, he recalled yesterday's adventure at Vale. "No... remember yesterday at the loading docks. Jaune was suffering from Aura exhaustion yesterday. He could barely move."

"But whenever you get Aura exhaustion, you just get lazier!"

"Well, for Jaune, I'm assuming that Aura exhaustion is a lot more serious of a problem." Ren countered, enjoying Nora's confusion. "His body is probably a whole lot more use to Aura than ours and it probably creates problems for him when he's low on Aura. Aura control on that level must have some serious drawbacks."

"Oh?" There's a sad tone in her voice, and Ren grabbed her hand to cheer her up. It worked. "I still think his Aura sword is the coolest thing ever! Only second to my Magnhild of course!"

Ren gripped Nora's hand tighter. "Of course."

...

Using her Semblance to increase her strength, Pyrrha brought Jaune's sword down with his hands into the dirt, opening a hole in his defense. He barely had time to react, getting pelted with a Semblance enhanced kick thrown directly at his chest. The force alone sent him tumbling through the forest floor and even through an unfortunate tree, throwing off Jaune's concentration to maintain Excalibur and compelling the Arc to use more of his Aura to steady himself. When he could finally find his footing, he's rubbing where Pyrrha's sudden kick had hit him on the chest, wincing from the pressure.

That was one hell of an enhanced kick. And not only that, he's exhausted as hell. Her Semblance was damn useful when she's wearing metal. And it didn't really help knowing that. Even though she knew he knew her Semblance, she's still destroying him with said Semblance.

"Knowing your enemy was the key to victory..." Jaune mumbled. "Whoever said that obviously never fought Pyrrha Nikos."

Barely having time to rub away the soreness, he's forced to resummon Excalibur to meet Pyrrha's sword thrust from the side. The blades clash and Pyrrha's blinded from the sudden brightness that came from summoning Excalibur.

Jaune—far too use that glow—used her momentary blind stumble to go for a counter. By sidestepping to her right where her Semblance couldn't reach that arm, he willed away Excalibur, only to resummon the blade when Pyrrha's sword went straight through the opening, taking her body down with her. Preparing to grab Pyrrha by the neck and thus technically win the match, Jaune didn't imagine for her body to move away before he could grab her.

Even by Huntsmen standards, Pyrrha shouldn't have been able to move that fast when her body was still busy falling down from the sudden loss of force acting against her. That was until he spotted her neck piece and golden crown covered in her Semblance. And for a split-second, Jaune's kind of glad he's not wearing metal, he's pretty sure Pyrrha would be controlling this fight if he was.

Then the tables turn and Destiny fell into Pyrrha's lap.

Using her Semblance to quickly upright her body, Pyrrha leaned back and threw a well-timed fist at Jaune's exposed face, following up with a quick knee to his stomach, finishing off with a powerful uppercut straight to his jaw from her arm wearing the metal armguard. He's sent flying through the air from the incredible strength of her attack, barely able to regain his wits and land poorly on the floor.

Jaune glared at his partner while rubbing his jaw from the boosted blow. Seriously! That was like the third time she aimed for his jaw. She could give Yang a run for her money when it came to fist-fighting. Thank Monty his Aura was probably absorbing most of those hits. But that didn't mean he didn't feel them. Because he did! Every single one of them.

Maybe he should practice some of that?

Shaking his head, Jaune charged at Pyrrha, carefully noting she covered her body in her Semblance again, and met her sword with his. There's a power struggle between her boosted power and his Aura enhanced muscles. Miló and Excalibur were locked in a fight for power and dominating wills. Just like Jaune, she'd gotten use to the brightness of Excalibur, though that didn't mean it wasn't any less head-aching to look at it from such a close range.

Forming an Aura sphere, Jaune planned to absorb and aim Shooting Star directly at Pyrrha's chest to ensure his victory. She'd have to give up if he's aiming point-blank range at heart, considering how dangerous this technique could be to her. However, through sheer instinct from seeing Jaune creating an Aura sphere, Pyrrha impulsively concentrationed on her Aura to shield her body.

Seeing her Aura flare, time slowed down as Jaune witnessed Pyrrha's Aura slowly travel up Miló, toward where their blades were meeting. And the very moment her Aura reached that point, his eyes widened when Excalibur cut right through her sword, slashing right through her Aura covered armor as if nothing but air hung between the two distraught partners.

There's a look of pain on Pyrrha's face. She's forced to move back from the surprise attack. Looking down, she could see a clean cut right across the lower region of stomach, all the way past her lower chest. The armor drenched in Aura stood zero chance against Excalibur. It cut through it with practical ease.

Fortunately, only a small portion of Jaune's sword actually reached her skin, but just like the cut on her cheek, the wound wasn't closing. And then there was this intense white-burning sensation coming from the cut. It burned hotter than any Fire Dust crystal could replicate. She's gritting her teeth to just stop any groans of pain from escaping her mouth.

Fighting away the agony, she could hear off in the distant part of her sword landing against the forest floor. So Jaune was right. His blade did cut through anything Aura.

Staring at the cut from which Excalibur slashed through Miló, Pyrrha found it unfair that Jaune's blade to able to cut through a blade coated in Aura like butter. The cut was so clean, left by a sizzling burn mark on the metal, nothing like she'd ever seen before. Every seasoned Huntsmen and Huntsmen-in-Training in all of Remnant coated their weapons in Aura. It was only the natural thing to do. And her leader had a weapon that put those all to shame with a weapon that basically cut through anything. And not only that, it was always within arm's reach. A perfect weapon that could be reformed multiple times. Sure, it had the drawback of needing a constant Aura source, but still.

She'd admit that she's a little jealous.

She only unlocked his Aura three months ago, maybe four, during initiation, but he'd already gotten so powerful in such a small amount of time. In all aspects, it wasn't fair. Such power and development in such a small window of time. Granted, she's still holding back a bit, but this Jaune Arc was a completely different Jaune Arc than she's used to. This one could fight back.

Hard.

His attacks were swift. His strength's fierce. His reflexes were impressive. And his skills were developed. A complete one-eighty to what she's used to. And it made her think, truly wonder what's in store for their leader. Just how far had his Aura taken him? How far could he still go? And how far until he hit his limit? If Aura control even had a limit.

Flipping what remained of Miló; Pyrrha held her weapon above her shoulder, ready for Jaune's next attack.

Meanwhile, the attacker didn't feel quite the same. "No! I think this fight's over! C'mon, Pyrrha..." Jaune begged, feeling her Space starting to decline. "Enough is enough! We need to patch up your wound before it becomes a problem!"

Pyrrha ignored him, ignored the blinding pain, and even ignored her dropping Aura reserves. _She needed this_. "This fight's not over yet, Jaune. You haven't yet proven to me that you're strong enough."

"Strong enough for what?!" he yelled again, willing away Excalibur. He's not going to use that against her anymore. "I still don't know what you mean!"

Disregarding the question, she lunged forward, using her Semblance to increase her speed. Jaune, during the internal struggle, was sticking to not using Excalibur anymore, but he's at a dilemma now. He couldn't use his sword. And he didn't exactly want to use his gun on her neither. Losing time to pick, and left without any other option, Jaune remembered he still had his unnamed Aura ball technique, though he's not sure if he should use that on her either. Jaune didn't know what'd happen if that hit her, especially since she's using Aura.

Not having any more time to decide with Pyrrha only a foot away, Team JNPR's leader skid his foot across the floor and pushed his palm out forward with an Aura sphere condensing in the dead center, meeting Pyrrha's weapon head-on. Like an explosion, the Aura collided with the metal in a blinding collision, and he noted how Pyrrha wasn't actively forcing any of her Aura into her weapon. At least she'd finally figured that out.

Thank Monty for small mercies.

Gritting his teeth, he felt his Aura sphere trying to rip apart the metal it came in contact with, unleashing a torrent of unimaginable power. Moments later, his Aura ball condensed in his hand, imploding almost, before an explosion trapped them both in a sphere of white-inducing light. And it's in there that Jaune felt his Aura explode all around them, focusing directly on contact with Pyrrha's sword.

 _Boom_!

Using Ren as a cover, Nora hid behind him to avoid the assortment of dust traveling in the air from the tremendous blast. Ren merely used his Aura to shield his eyes away from the oncoming dust, only slightly narrowing his field of vision. Within the dome of white he could see Jaune's Aura sphere break through Pyrrha's weapon, inching closer to her body, but then the dust became too much for him to handle.

Grabbing Nora, Ren lunged to the other side of the rock they're sitting on, waiting for the smoke to clear. Nora, during the struggle, was temporarily huddled up close to Ren, finding the fight no longer any fun. She just wanted her two friends to stop and make up!

Eventually, the explosion settled down and Nora's the first to poke her head above the rock, trying to peer into the small crater that'd formed across from them.

"You think they're okay, Ren?"

"If they aren't... I'm not the one who's going to tell Professor Goodwitch."

Nora peered over to Ren, blinking once. "Did you just make a joke, Ren?"

"... C'mon. We should go check on them." He not so subtly feigned, poking Nora on the forehead when she tried to stop him.

He only got about three steps away from the rock when he spotted a figure standing in the smokey crater, barely able to stand on their own two feet.

...

Opening his eyes, the first thing Jaune saw from his temporary blackout was Pyrrha standing over him with the broken remains of her weapon, pointed directly at his face. There were small burn marks from the Aura explosion all around her body, especially on the arm she had been holding Miló on. He could even see parts of her Aura damaged, and the Space she was releasing was far weaker than before. But Pyrrha's still the one standing over him. Not the other way around. It's her weapon pointed directly at him and not his.

It's her victory.

Lifting what remained of her weapon, Pyrrha smiled weakly at the charcoal remains of Miló, unable to stop the shaking of her hand. Even with no Aura added, her weapon still broke. How disappointing.

"So you're not a liar?" Dropping the remains of Miló, Pyrrha began to lose some form of consciousness, but still managed to keep her wits about. "That's... good. I'm glad."

Moving beside Jaune, Pyrrha fell flat on her bottom, remaining awake. Her posture's weak and she kind of didn't seem completely there. Her eyes unfocused a few times, but she managed to hold it together. She's then overlooking the small burn marks on her hands, feeling that same white-hot burning sensation coming from them, only not as strong. Without her adrenaline, it's hard not to notice, but easy to ignore if she tried. And as before, her Aura's doing little to nothing to stop the constant pain.

Meanwhile, Jaune's sitting up, observing his own injuries which were mostly long scratches here and there with the occasional bruise. He had no burns like Pyrrha, but he's sore all over, but he could feel that his Aura reserves were relatively fine, if not a bit low. Excalibur didn't ever drain Aura which helped a lot compared to the ever draining Shooting Star, unnamed Aura ball technique, and physical confrontations of Pyrrha's fist and his face. By all means, he's not completely drained like yesterday. Now that's something he didn't wish to repeat anytime soon. But he's down right exhausted, and his whole body just hurt all over.

It took a long time before he could get his breathing under control. He slowly felt his remaining Aura steadily repairing the damages done to his body. If he's not totally guessing, he might have guessed he cracked a rib from that explosion as well. But compared to Pyrrha, he's the one worse off. She's not tired exactly, more concerned at the small burn marks on her hand.

Feeling his breathing finally under control, Jaune struggled to move, muscles all protest, staring at a cloudless sky with an edging horizon. A few more minutes later, his Aura finally healed his body enough for him to be able to move again, and he couldn't jump faster at the chance, even if his muscle protested with each glaring movement. Besides, it's time they talk this through now. And there's no time like the present.

"Fine, you win." Blowing a stray strand of hair from his nose, he stood up, rubbing away specs of dust from his hair and lightly glaring at his partner for a change. "You mind telling me what this was all about now?"

Meeting his glare, Pyrrha stood up as well, adrenaline pushing away the burns. Eventually, though, she's smiling a small smile at her leader. "Sure."

Moving next to him, Jaune's a little unnerved from Pyrrha's sudden smile. He wasn't expecting her to switch shifts and suddenly smile at him after the fight they've just had. He also didn't expect her to get up so easily either.

She's made of some tough stuff—four time Mistral Regional Tournament champion stuff.

"I will admit that I was mad that you lied to me—to all of us. But..." she added, silencing him with a finger to his lip. "I was also mad and hurt that you couldn't trust us enough to show us your improvement." Jaune's eyes widen a bit, lost. "I was really worried about your safety for the Vytal Tournament since you've made no progress in training. Do you know how much I worried? How worthless I felt for not being able to train you to be able to fight. I didn't want to see you get hurt!" Then her voice broke a little, and Jaune felt his anger dying. "But then I learn that this entire time you've always had this strength hidden. And at first I felt happy... overjoyed even. But then I felt betrayed. Did you even need me? Or was I just a burden for—?!"

Before she could finish, Jaune grabbed and pulled Pyrrha in a Nora-level hug. "I'm sorry, Pyrrha. I didn't know. I'm so sorry for making you worry."

Pyrrha eventually returned the hug, laughing into his muddied hoodie. She had one of those eyes closed smiles with her words partially mumbled between the threads of his clothing. "I'm just glad that you proved to me that you have indeed gotten stronger. I don't have to worry anymore!"

"And me cutting your shield in half didn't prove I was stronger?"

Pyrrha shook her head. "You were just as surprised as I was. If you had known, then it would've been different."

"... You know I could've seriously hurt you back there with my sword not letting your Aura heal you and stuff." Jaune remembered, a little confused at her persistence to continue on fighting. "What was all that about back there?"

Blushing a little, Pyrrha looked away. "I will admit it was... stubborn pride that pushed me. But!" she added yet again, looking solely into his eyes. "I will also admit that it was my obligation as a partner and friend to make sure you've really gotten stronger."

Enjoying the moment, Jaune eventually moved away a little from their hug, staring at her sadly. "Other than the lying... was that the only reason you were mad?"

Pyrrha actually looked away again. "... No. There's another."

"Then what else—?"

"Fearless Leader!" Jaune's stopped and the moment's ruined when Nora jumped on his back, now using him as a temporary leaning post like Ren. Her arms were wrapped around his neck, choking the life out of him. And he felt like some cosmic payback had been achieved. He could barely support her weight. "What was that cool explosion thing you just did?"

Resorting to using Aura to pry an excited Nora off his neck, Jaune held her up with one hand, the other checking for any damage to his now sore neck. Pyrrha's off to the side, hiding her amusement in her palm. And it took a moment for the soreness to go away, thoughtfully wondering if this was why Ren rarely spoke or why his voice was so low?

Troubling thoughts side, he coughed a little, already planning on more revenge ideas for Nora.

Fidgeting in his grip, Nora used Jaune's hold as a swing of sorts, and lightly hovered back and forth in delight. "So... what was that cool explosion?!"

Letting her go—which did absolutely nothing to stop her from getting closer within his personal bubble—Jaune formed a simple Aura ball in his hand, letting Nora soak in the sheer awesomeness of a simple Aura technique.

"It was my Aura ball crashing into something." Jaune explained, moving away from his team to strike the rock that Ren and Nora had sat on the entire time. The rock exploded into a million pieces of dust, which, sadly enough, Jaune could count. "See?"

"I know that, silly!" Nora waved, getting a closer look at another Aura ball Jaune's formed. "I mean what is its name? What do you call that attack?!"

Tilting his head, Jaune stared absentlyat his simple Aura sphere. "I don't have a name for it."

"What?!" Nora once again invaded Jaune's bubble, lightly grasping his hand with the Aura ball, looking curiously at it. "How could you not have a name for something so amazing?!"

"I couldn't think of one? It's not as easy as it sounds."

Pouting her lip in concentration, Nora stared up at Jaune and then back down at the white Aura sphere. She's constantly twisting her head to get a different look at the plain sphere of Aura, acting like there's some hidden clue her dumb leader had missed. Jaune, however, glanced over to Ren for some sort of guidance, but he's overlooking Pyrrha's injuries at the moment, so he's stuck to allowing Nora to do what Nora's did. Which included studying a perfect sphere for faulty design.

A minute passed before she shook his hand. "Can I name it?"

"You want to... name it?"

Her eyes gleam. "Yea! Please!"

Jaune opened his mouth to answer, then shut it. He thought for a moment, ignoring her greedy smile. Finally, he looked back at the unnamed Aura ball. Well, he was getting tired of calling in the unnamed Aura attack, anyways. And Nora's far more imaginative that he'd ever be. And it wasn't like names were rolling off his tongue. So why the hell not?

"Fine..." he agreed, but glared for a second. "But if it's stupid, I'm not keeping it!"

"You got it!" she saluted, grinning a smile far from innocent. "Now shut up and let me think! Hmm?" She hummed, tongue out, eyes to shiny for her own good. "Well, first, when you and Pyrrha crashed, your Aura ball grew small and then... Burst... like... like... like a supernova!"

"Supernova?"

"Yea!" Nora yelled, agreeing with herself. "Call it that! Call it Supernova!"

Looking down at the Aura ball floating in his hand, Jaune could see some sort of semblance of a supernova. It's bright like one and it did explode or burst like Nora so eloquently put it, or at least he's sure that's what a supernova looked and did. He didn't pay much attention when Professor Oobleck was going over stars and junk. Not his strong suit. Still, it beat the unnamed Aura ball attack any day.

"Burst... Supernova." Jaune grinned, slowly absorbing the Aura ball. "Sounds good to me."

"Awesome!" she cheered, attempting to poke the Aura ball, but Jaune willed it away. "Awww!"

"Sorry, Nora." he grinned even larger, revenge totally his. "Can't let you touch that. You saw what it did to Pyrrha and me in that... burst. It's not something you wanna mess with."

Before Nora could complain on how totally unfair their Fearless Leader was being, Ren walked over, looking Jaune once over for injury. Pyrrha's right behind with her side patched up, hand bandaged, and a band aide over her cheek. There's a slight wince in her step, but she's relatively fine. Or how fine someone could be after getting caught in Supernova's explosion could be. Such oddities he's learning right now. Although, Jaune's more focused on something else rather than Pyrrha's impressive resolve.

Did Ren always carry medical supplies? How come no one told him these things?! A Fearless Leader such as himself should know this!

"Speaking of the explosion, I'm surprised that Aura explosion didn't do more damage to you." Ren calmly observed, pulling the fabric of Jaune's hoodie, checking for any real damage. There's hardly any. "There's no burn marks anywhere on you."

Jaune shrugged, smiling lazily. "My Aura doesn't hurt me. Believe me, I've tried." Holding out his hand, Jaune demonstrated by forming Excalibur and trying to cut to his arm— _trying_ being the keyword. The sword simply collided with Jaune's skin, bounced off, unable to cut. "See? Nothing. I just get real tired."

Ren could accept that as an answer.

But there's something that's still bugging him. "So how come you've never just added Aura to Crocea Mors if your so much better with Aura than without it?" he poked, honestly curious.

His answer's another honest shrug. "Believe me, I've tried, but I can't. Damn sword just rejects it. I don't know why. I've tried a few times now and nope! Nothing."

"Ah! Who cares about why Jaune's sword can't take Aura." Nora fussed, hugging Ren from behind. "He's got his cool shiny sword to fight with and that awesome glowing gun! He even has Supernova!"

"Supernova?" Ren echoed.

"I let Nora name my Aura ball attack."

"... Ah."

Watching Nora leave his side to pull on Jaune's arm, attempting to make him use his Aura, Ren casually glared at Pyrrha and her numerous small burns. He then looked past her and saw the broken remains of Miló and whatever remained of Akoúo̱. Dark thoughts almost made Ren not want to ask, but Jaune's busy entertaining Nora, so the job's left to him.

"While we're on the topic about weapons." Ren turned back to Pyrrha. "What are you going to do about yours?"

Both Jaune and Nora end their little fight to see Pyrrha looking back at where the broken remains of where her weapons laid. Jaune actually felt really bad for destroying her weapon and shield. He'd come to learn how precious creating your own weapon finally meant to someone. He wouldn't know what to do if he suddenly lost Excalibur.

"I don't know." Pyrrha sighed, looking at what's mostly likely the graveyard for Akoúo̱ and Miló. Her shoulders slump. "I'll think of something."

There's a moment of heavy silence, but Nora grabbed Pyrrha by the arm and began dragging her butt out if Emerald Forest. "Hey, c'mon!" she smiled, pulling her harder. "Of course you'll think of something! And Ren and I can help you build a new design."

"What about Jaune?"

"Eh... he could just watch!"

Jaune would almost took offense to that if Nora wasn't absolutely, positively right. He made his weapon out of Aura, and Crocea Mors may be tough, but it's relatively simple in design. He couldn't really be of any help to her there when it came to any physical mechanics. Machinery, momentum, physics, design and science junk was just not his forte. Besides, the sun's setting. They should head back to their room now before any Grimm show up.

Quite honestly, he's surprised only one did throughout the entire ordeal. He could've sworn at least more would've showed up. The entire battlefield had been littered with negativity, yet, none showed. What a pity. He liked shooting Grimm through the chest with Shooting Star.

Scratching the side of his face, Jaune grinned a slothful smile, following right behind them. Ren's right beside him, keeping calm like always.

It's a few steps later than Jaune gazed over his shoulder to where Pyrrha's weapons laid, remembering the fight they just had. Then something striked him, forcing the blond to poke his fellow male. "Hey, Ren? Something's been bugging me."

"And that would be?"

"I don't know, it's just." Jaune rambled, waving his hand in circles in the air, thinking. "Shouldn't Pyrrha be a little mad that I destroyed her weapons? I mean... I did kinda hurt her in that fight... a lot. And she's taking this surprisingly well considering she's supposed to be some champion. I know Weiss would be angry as heck if this happened to her."

Ren pondered over Jaune's question, seriously thinking and seeing the issue. He paused a moment to watch Pyrrha attempt to calm down his childhood friend. A pointless endeavor. And even through the effort, she's smiling and laughing a little alongside her, anyways. "It's probably nice to lose for a change."

"But she won that fight."

He gave him a sideways glance. "To her she has always been in control." Ren rested a hand on Jaune's shoulder. "And though that sounds like an ideal experience, it can become quite taxing on someone over a long period of time. Maybe it's nice to not be in control for once."

"That doesn't really make much sense." Jaune deadpanned.

Ren poked Jaune on the shoulder. "Then let me ask you this, Fearless Leader. Having all that power hidden from us; were you happy? Or did it consume you to the point that it hurt to lie to us? So I ask you again, were you happy?"

"Those..." he thought, pointing hard at Ren, but not denying his claim. "Are two different things."

"They may be different, but they both still revolve around the same idea. Power." Ren smoothly countered, resting his hands in his pockets. "What's the point of having all the power in the world, if you have no one to share it with. Being invincible separates you from others... traps you in a sea of loneliness. Losing for her must've made her feel normal again."

Looking away, Jaune stared up into the sky before looking back at Ren with some form of understanding. He didn't totally get what he's saying, but he kind of did at the same time.

"How do you know so much? What's your secret?" Jaune asked, expecting an answer equivalent to the mystery of the universe.

What he got was not what he was expecting.

Stopping their walk, Ren glared at Jaune intently. "You try living with Nora your whole life with her constant questioning and not have the answers." Sighing under his breath, he rubbed his neck tenderly. "Trust me, Jaune. You want to have the answers... or else the questions never stop." Still not used to Ren being angry, Jaune nodded numbly at him as his teammate regained controls over his emotions. "Now it's my turn to ask a question." He started to walk again. "How come you're not mad at Pyrrha for lying to you about your progress in training all these months?"

Jaune pondered for a moment, catching up to him. It's an easy answer. "Meh. I don't really hold grudges. Besides... she kept trying to train me after learning I wasn't improving. She didn't want to give up on me..." he smiled. "How can you stay mad at someone like that?"

Hearing his answer, Ren looked at Nora across from them who was pulling Pyrrha toward their room in impatient haste. The scene brought him his own small smile. Even after all the random morning wake-up calls, intense pancake runs, and overexcited chattering that came with being Nora Valkyrie's childhood friend, Ren never once had thought about looking back. He could never get mad at her.

And he wouldn't trade away Nora's company for anything in the world.

Answering Jaune's question in comfortable silence, the rest of the trip back to their dorm was almost entirely Nora filled, until Pyrrha suddenly stopped and pointed at Jaune with a look of determination on her face.

Oh no! This couldn't be good.

"Next time we fight, Jaune, I'll know what to expect." Pyrrha challenged, her fist burning in anticipation.

Her leader's not as enthusiastic. "Great."

...

By the time they make it back to their room, the sun's halfway down the sky, illuminating their room in a soft glow of orange. And Jaune may not know it, but Ren did notice that their leader's scratch marks, bruises, and the gash on his shoulder have completely healed.

Strange.

Nora being Nora was the first to plop down on Ren's bed, jumping once on it for good measure. "So! You said you could see Aura earlier! How does that work?"

Jaune plopped down on his own bed, starring at the ceiling and fighting the urge to count dust. "I don't know. When I'm using my Aura, I can just see anyone else using their Aura as well."

"Really?" he nodded. "What does mine look like? Here, I'll use my Aura!"

Jaune turned his head and concentrated a little to see Nora's Aura. It's still the same turquoise, bubbly Aura he saw yesterday. And the Space she's emitting was as powerful as before, only less concentrated.

"Yours is a mix of green and blue, and is very bubbly. Ren's is pink and is very calm while Pyrrha's is reddish and very fierce." Jaune added. "I can even see when someone is using their Semblances, like with what Ren did to Ruby's weapon yesterday—which I have yet to figure out how you did that by the way."

Ren sat down beside Nora. "I thought you said you could see Semblances as well?"

Jaune turned his head back to the ceiling. "I can see them, but I have to figure out how they work. Like I did with Pyrrha. But you could save me a lot of trouble and just tell me now, Ren?"

There's a small silence.

"Nope."

And then it's broken.

"... I hate you sometimes, you know that?"

Casually overlooking their leader, Ren fell back on his bed with Nora falling beside him. There's a small tug on his lips that only Nora saw, and Jaune scoffed at her devilish giggle. Why couldn't Monty give him a break?

Yawning, their leader felt a dip on his bed and he looked over to see Pyrrha staring at him from the corner. He sat up, yawning once more. "What's up, Pyrrha?"

She's quiet for a second, no longer feeling the white-hot burning sensation coming from where Jaune had cut her. She opened her mouth to speak, only to close it right after. She did this a couple more times before finally finding the right words.

"So... you don't use your ancestor's sword anymore?"

"Nope, not really!" he answered quickly, pulling Crocea Mors out from beneath his bed. "Only when we're sparring or in Professor Goodwitch's class. But now I don't think that's going to be a problem anymore. Other than combat class, I don't use this sword anymore. It doesn't really feel right in my hands, so I've kinda stopped using it."

Jaune gave the sword to Pyrrha to hold and she's looking at it with a sadden face. He's not too sure at what that's supposed to mean, but then she hit him hard with depressing words.

She slowly looked up at him. "So you've abandoned your sword?"

The question caught him off-guard with the way she plainly said that. It almost made him feel terrible for discarding Crocea Mors. But he'd already given this much thought these past couple of months, so he's not totally caught off-guard.

"I never abandoned my sword... It was just never mine to begin with." Jaune said simply, absolute. "It was my great-great grandfather's blade, not mine. It belongs in the hands of someone who could truly wield it."

Hearing his answer, Pyrrha gripped the blade between her hands, feeling sympathy for the forgotten sword. Jaune's pinching the bridge of nose while she did this, hating himself even more. That just sounded cold in the way he had said that.

Rubbing his forehead with one finger, Jaune calmly looked over to see Pyrrha gripping Crocea Mors in tender care. She's gripping the blade in a way he never could. It seemed to fit perfectly in her hands.

Actually?

Now that he thought about it. Even if Crocea Mors was heavy and didn't accept Aura, Pyrrha had the solution to both those problems. Her Semblance made it as light as a feather in her hands, and she originally never used Aura in her sword as far as he saw during their fight, until her instincts took over that was.

Gazing at his ancestor's blade in her hands, Jaune came to a crazy idea.

"You know... you could use Crocea Mors if you want for as long as you need it." Jaune absently said, not knowing the weight of his own words. "If you're okay with that?"

Turning her head so fast, he's surprised Pyrrha's hair didn't hit him in the face. She's looking at him with such lost eyes, like she couldn't decide whether to be happy, sad, mad, or even all of the above with him.

"Really, Jaune?"

Grinning, he pulled out the shield from under his bed as well. "Sure! Here! It even comes with a shield. All you're missing now is a gun!" Pyrrha didn't know what to say. So it's Ren who filled in the silence.

"Our semester is about to end soon. Vacation's just around the corner." Ren reminded them, pointing at Crocea Mors. "With that free time, you could use Jaune's sword until the semesters over and then build yourself a new weapon during the break."

"And your new weapon can be even better than your last one." Nora added, shaking Ren. "Maybe this time you could add a flamethrower or something that shoots out lightning?"

"Nora? Wouldn't a flamethrower be a bit too much?"

"Pssh, Ren!" Nora disagreed. "That's nowhere near enough! Weiss's pointy weapon uses more stuff than that." Pausing, Ren calmly _booped_ Nora on the nose, unable to fault her logic. She's right. "Hey! No fair!"

Trying to boop him in retaliation, Pyrrha's left to stare down at the blade in her hands, finding herself able to breathe once more. She's no longer weaponless. A gift from their leader. She's couldn't fight off her smile.

"Okay." Pyrrha agreed, gripping the sword tighter. "That sounds like a plan. I'll do it!"

"Yea! Go team us!" Nora yelled. "We're going to so kick butt in the Vytal Tournament when you finish building your new and improved weapon! And then we have Jaune too!" she jumped on Ren's bed, pumping her fist into the air. "No one's going to know what hit them! We're going to kick butt!"

Jaune actually laughed awkwardly at that, having been reminded of something crucially important. "Actually, guys, speaking of the Vytal Tournament... there's something I gotta tell you."

"And what would that be?" Ren asked.

Handing Pyrrha his shield, Jaune stood up, and rubbed his neck. Looked like that team meeting he wanted before was happening after all. Only problem, how did he bring this up exactly? The beginning would probably be the best.

"So before I went to Vale yesterday..." Jaune recounted, looking out the window, toward the setting sun from across Beacon's courtyard. "I had this meeting with Headmaster Ozpin."

* * *

 **Author Notes:** Edited **– 1/10/2018**


	8. Lead

**Disclaimer:** I own nothing of RWBY.

* * *

 **Lead**

 **By: Imyoshi**

Time to rewind back a day.

To the day Jaune Arc's lie finally caught up with him—and forced him to confront his fears.

And toward his first steps to becoming a true team leader.

Recalling the meeting the day before, he allowed the memories of the meeting with Professor Ozpin to resurface. Every word and every facial feature came back full force, and his teammates patiently waited for him to begin, curiously wondering how their room suddenly got so cold. So serious? Their Fearless Leader never acted. It wasn't in his nature to.

None of them had to wait too long.

...

Studying the student in front of him, Ozpin ever so blithely slanted his eyes, folding his fingers together in a perfect knit. He hummed lightly to a tone only he could hear, observing Jaune Arc and his nervous tendencies to a high-degree. The Arc had something to tell him about his transcripts? Possibly a secret that affected both of them? Why else would the boy bravely venture into the lion's den? Such actions demanded his full attention.

This ought to be interesting.

"And what about your transcripts?" Ozpin finally inquired, leaning forward on his chair.

Jaune stiffened for a quick moment under Ozpin's tone, but he reached down into his soul and found some hidden courage. The Headmaster could've sworn Jaune Arc seemed to glow a light shade of white for the briefest of moments, but when he blinked, that skeleton of white had vanished.

"They're fake." Jaune told him bodly, feeling an invisible weight fall off his shoulders.

"... Come again?"

"They're fake, okay!" he repeated, throwing his hands up in the air. Damn! Did that feel amazing to say! "My transcripts are fake! I got into Beacon through fake transcripts. I've never attended any combat school before coming here. I never trained with some Huntsmen! I've done none of that! I came into this school with zero training to back me up!"

Glaring through his glasses, Ozpin calmly considered Jaune's words. He really, _really_ considered them. And for the life of him, the professor couldn't deduce Mr. Arc's line of reasoning. "Why are you telling me this, Mr. Arc? You could've continued attending Beacon without me ever knowing. So why now? What's pushed you to reveal your secret?"

Jaune stood rigid for a moment, eyes getting lost in the memory from earlier, but they harden again from another memory, fueling and pushing him forward. This wasn't about him. It was never about him. It was about his team. Whatever happened to him didn't matter. It didn't matter! A team leader must take responsibility for his team and that included protecting them from himself.

"I was still in Professor Goodwitch's class when you told her about those students who got expelled. How _all_ of them got expelled."

"That still doesn't explain everything—?"

"You said anyone who lost during the Vytal Tournament would be put under some strict pretty reevaluations!" Jaune cut in, feeling his heartbeat racing. "And I've just told you that my transcripts are fake, but if I hadn't, and if— _no_! _When_ I would've lost in the tournament, you would've found my fake transcripts..." he paused, forming fist in anger and sadness. "I was fine thinking only I was going to be expelled. I was fine with that. That wasn't too much... but when I heard that the others student's entire team got expelled and..." Jaune trailed off.

And Ozpin caught up. "... And you're team knows of your fake transcripts. You've come to turn yourself in, hoping to take all the blame and protect them."

Jaune couldn't look at Ozpin directly in the eyes, finding his professor's coffee mug a much better choice. "It's not their fault they got a liar for a leader. They shouldn't have to suffer for my mistakes."

Ozpin studied the boy in front of him. "You look tired, Mr. Arc."

Jaune didn't bother fighting that. "It's been a very, _very_ long day, Professor Ozpin. I've had a lot to think about."

"I bet you have." Ozpin stood up, sighing with frustration. An air of emotion filled the clockwork room. He really didn't need this right now. "Revealing your fake transcripts with no warning whatsoever definitely sounds like you've had a busy day."

"So... am I going to get expelled now?" Jaune cut straight to the point, finding whatever courage he could muster. "And if I am... could you please leave my team out of it?"

The Headmaster looked down into his coffee for a long moment, pulling in the seconds, thinking over _how_ and _why_ Jaune Arc quite possibly threw away his future for an off-chance of being discovered. And he had say, he's impressed with the Arc's dedication to his team. Truly making Jaune Arc leader of Team JNPR was the right call. Others might've been against his judgement from the beginning, but Ozpin had seen potential. Potential that could be nurtured into a fine leader one day. Maybe in another world he would've looked to Team JNPR as his personal team instead of their sister team.

Now? What to do with Mr. Arc? A simple slap on the wrist was inexcusable. Glynda would never let him hear the end of it if she ever figured out. And Ozpin wasn't so sure he liked that solution. Proper protocol _did_ call for the Arc's immediate expulsion, like the student prior. However, between the two, Jaune had qualities that simply shouldn't be thrown away. And it didn't hurt that he owned up to his faults. It took a man with the right amount of pride and sense of right to do such a thing. Be such a shame to toss out such a student.

A quick sip of his mug allowed Ozpin's to way in the pros and cons.

Bad deeds had to be punished. Good ones were to be reward. But Mr. Arc was stuck between the two. Maybe, just maybe, he could bend the rules if this leader proved himself? And the Headmaster had the perfect way for the Fearless Leader of Team JNPR to do such that.

"The difference between that other student and you, Jaune Arc, is that you came clean and told the truth..." he began, listing the differences between them. "Instead of risking your team's future and safety, you've only risked your own. Those are the qualities a leader is supposed to have."

Remembering that Alpha Beowulf's sacrifice, Jaune learned from that experience. "A good leader sacrifices himself for the good of his team so they never have to walk over their friend's corpses."

"Very well said." Ozpin agreed and disagreed. Sacrifice should never be lingering in the young minds of Remnant's future. "Now it is true that I should expel you on the spot, but!" he stopped, sitting back down on his chair. "For your courage and selfless deeds, I won't reward you, but give you a chance to prove yourself in the Vytal Tournament."

Jaune couldn't find the will to breathe, too stunned from Professor Ozpin's words. He almost fell down from his legs almost giving out. His heart wouldn't stop racing. But Ozpin wasn't finished with him yet. "If you lose, you'll be _kicked_ out of Beacon. Not expelled. Remember, any team that does not win will be put under strict reevaluation and you'll just so happen not make the cut. However..." he added with a smile that filled Jaune with a semblance of hope. "If you just so happen to win, well then, there's nothing I can do to stop you from staying here at Beacon. After all... if you win... _you deserve to be here._ "

Jaune's at a loss for words for a second, not believing his Professor, but he did find the most important ones. "And my team?"

Ozpin waved his hand innocently at the question, but he did smile at Jaune's focus on his team. "As far as I know, you are the one with the fake transcripts and not them. They have nothing to worry about unless they do exceptionally poor during the Vytal Tournament."

Hearing that, Jaune lightly touched his chest, feeling a strong tug there. It was cold and warm at the same time, like his Aura and not. Something entirely different moved awkwardly in his soul. A strange, familiar presence he'd only just felt moments ago came then went. As if it had been harboring there for quite a while now and he just hadn't noticed until he finally felt some form relief.

"The people of Vale chose your team, Jaune Arc. Do not disappoint them."

...

Returning back from memory lane, Jaune lifted his head and dared a glance at his team, glad that there were no more secrets between them. Those lies had taken such a toll on his soul. Robbed him of some of his Arc pride. And even if felt absolutely sure that Ozpin's hiding something from him, he couldn't find it in him to care.

"And that about wraps it up." Jaune finished, feeling even more weight life off his shoulders. "Either I win the Vytal Tournament or I get kicked out of Beacon. And no one's expecting me to even fight. So I'll probably lose. But in the end, you're all going to be safe. That's all that matters."

Not really knowing what to expect, Jaune's met with a series of mixed reactions.

Pyrrha's looking at the ground, shuffling her feet, probably conflicted. Ren's very indifferent, if not concerned. But it's Nora who seized the pancake, crying her eyes out. Without warning, she lunged and captured him in a death-level constricting hug, shaking the poor Arc in a relentless, endless loop. It's strange with him being so much taller than her.

"You're the _greatest_ leader ever! The greatest!" she cried, shaking him even harder. He's slowly losing feeling in both his arms. "Well make sure you win! Don't worry! Ren and I got this! Right, Ren?!"

Nora whimpered at Ren pleadingly, and the Lie couldn't crush her spirits and say _no_. Truth be told, there's no guarantee he could do _anything_ to help Jaune and saying _no_ was the safest option he could say, but Nora always looked up to him for all the answers. It's a tough job being the reasonable one. Because Ren's not allowed to say _no_ when it really mattered **—** _ever_!

And this moment mattered.

Seeing their leader losing the feeling in his upper body, he calmly sat up on his bed and looked around the room for some sort of inspiration. The answer came to him from the poster hanging on the wall of the Sloth King. The very same one that hid Jaune's secret and destructive power from the outside world. Ren's now positive that their leader hadn't accidentally tripped on Nora's grenade canister and impaled the wall with Crocea Mors. That was done by an Aura-based attack.

And he's betting the weapon used was called Shooting Star.

Getting up, Ren walked over and promptly ripped off the poster from the wall, letting the setting sun's light shine through and hit his leader and best friend in the face. His eyes narrow for a moment, recalling the fight between Jaune and Pyrrha. Maybe this bleak future could still be changed and salvage? All hope couldn't be lost. And just like the poster hiding Jaune's true powers, even from them, it inspired the Lie to stick to his roots.

"Does anyone else know of your Aura powers?" Ren asked, looking over to Jaune and Nora. When he's given a quick shake of the head, Ren got a crazy, _smart_ idea. Yup! He's definitely Nora's well of infinite of wisdom. "Good. I have a plan."

Nora's eyes sparkled, tears all gone. "See! I knew Ren wouldn't let us down! He always has a plan!"

Jaune forgo trying to argue with her, afraid she'd crush him more in her strong snake-like grip. He's using his Aura to keep his fragile bones from cracking underneath the pressure. Thankfully, the fight with Pyrrha hadn't totally starved him of Aura. But he's nearing his limits.

"Alright, here's my idea." Ren began, letting the words roll off his tongue. "You're going to keep your Aura powers a secret until the finals round of the tournament. We're all going to _lie_ about it if someone asks. There you'll use the element of surprise to gain an advantage and win the leader free-for-all."

Jaune looked sad for a second, feeling _his_ spirits crushed. "But I was going to show off in Professor Goodwitch's class tomorrow. I was going to be all super amazing and wow the crowd!"

Ren narrowed his eyes at his Fearless Leader, getting a surprise _gasp_ from both Jaune and Nora, though their reactions were vastly different. Jaune looked scared and impressed, while Nora's eye sparkled with something akin to hunger?

"Not anymore you're not!" he argued for the sake of his leader's safety and future. "You said it yourself, Jaune, no one's expecting anything out of you. Well, we're going to use that to our advantage, and surprise the other teams." Ren reasoned, pointing at Pyrrha and her slightly bandaged form. He smiled softly as a form of apology to her. "Look what happens when you have the element of surprise on your side. You did that with your Aura weapons. Do you really want the other Huntsmen prepared for that?"

The answer's obvious and so was Ren's plan.

Of course Jaune didn't fully believe in the plan.

"But we would still have to win the four-on-four and two-on-two." Jaune reasoned, already feeling his argument falling apart the moment when Nora moved away from him to stand next to Ren and Pyrrha.

Nora's smile was wide and Pyrrha was almost as large as hers, if not much warmer. Ren simply did the cool guy smile, having his head leaned down and his eyes closed. He even had his arms folded together—the damn show off.

This time it's Pyrrha's turn to break the silence. She's holding Crocea Mors close to her chest. "You may have kept secrets and lied to us... but you also protected us."

"Yea! There's no way we're going to let Ozpin kick you out." Nora added, thumbs up and all. Losing wasn't an option. Nuh-uh! "That means we'll just have to kick everyone's butt in the tournament and win! And don't worry about the two-on-two! Ren and I got it covered!"

"What Nora said." Ren agreed quickly, but then paused, letting his eyes travel to Jaune's sword in Pyrrha's hands. "But you are going to have to use Crocea Mors during the first round in order for this plan to work, Jaune."

Being told he had to use Crocea Mors a little bit longer didn't upset the Arc, but he still felt his voice shrink in his throat. Here he was, prepared for the worst possible outcome, and his team didn't seem to think that losing was even a liable option. They truly believed he— _they_ could win the Vytal Tournament.

Where was this same support from his parents?

"Guys..."

"We're Team JNPR!" Nora cut in, proclaiming as if their team were anything special. She made it seem special. "We don't lose! And we're not gonna start now! We'll train until we're unstoppable!"

"The semester is almost up." Ren added, rubbing his chin in thought. "We can train during our two week break. Maybe leave Beacon and find somewhere where there aren't other people around?"

Pyrrha seemed to nod at the idea as well, adding her own thoughts to a training break. Jaune couldn't believe what he's hearing. He couldn't. After all the lying and secrets, after everything, they're still willingly to help? To help him?

Nora jumped right onto Ren's bed, bouncing multiple times and clearly ruining whatever order it once had. She's smiling and not the way Jaune liked. "We can train in Emerald Forest! There's no one there but Grimm! It's perfect!"

Ren's about to say _no_ to the crazy idea, but pieces of an idea began to fall into place. No people and only Grimm. It could prove to be the perfect place to train. No prying eyes to watch them practice could only benefit their training. Team JNPR could even camp at Emerald Forest to save time between travels. And Nora would enjoy the camping experience. She did love the outdoors.

Knowing his leader needed their help, Ren decided if there was any point in time to be not lazy, it was now. He owed it to his leader for putting his enrollment and future on the line instead of jeopardizing theirs. Ren didn't know if Jaune would ever fully understand the weight of his actions he'd done for both him and Nora, but he's grateful at this moment that Jaune Arc was their leader. Lie Ren couldn't ask for a better one.

"It is perfect." Ren finally agreed, moving toward Jaune. "You could practice all your Aura techniques without anyone seeing and we could get some team training done as well."

Jaune finally realized Ren's serious about winning the tournament and allowed himself to smile a little. "You've already decided on this plan, haven't you?"

He smirked at Jaune, radiating unknown power. "Consider it a way of saying thanks for sticking your neck out for us."

"You sure have a funny way of saying thanks." Ren said nothing, so Jaune waved his interest, intent to listening to this new plan of his. So Ren really did have _all_ the answers. "Fine, I'm on board. What's the first step to your so called plan?"

Watching the two males of Team JNPR talk away, Pyrrha almost felt left out of the conversation when it came to camping and roughing it in the woods. She's about to interrupt and add her own input before a small sigh caught her attention, making the cereal girl look at her fellow female. And she's surprised at what she saw.

Nora's quiet and staring intently at Ren with a goofy smile plastered on her face.

"Nora? Are you okay?" Pyrrha nudged her on the shoulder, and Nora responded by not being able to get her eyes off Ren as he talked in a confident and powerful tone to their Fearless Leader.

"I've never seen Ren so... so..." she couldn't even finish the question, awestruck by Ren's complete mood change from lazy and passive to confident and assertive. It was really heating Nora up in a way pancakes could never compare. "So serious."

Even when Ren was fighting he did as little as possible to win. So she'd never seen this side of him before. Never! But she definitely liked it. A lot! A lot-lot!

"C'mon, Nora." Ren suddenly pulled her away from her train of thought, heading out toward the door. "We'll need to reserve some camping gear from Beacon's storeroom and maybe find a map of Emerald Forest before someone else does. It's best to be prepared."

Nora needed no persuasion and followed right behind him, arms playfully hidden behind her back.

Now, normally, Ren would've waited for Jaune and Pyrrha as well, but since those two just fought and he's on this rare non-lazy spur of the moment adrenaline boost, he's not going to wait for them, allowing them to rest from their intense battle. Besides, he had a sneaking suspicion that this was the best course of action.

Watching him leave, Jaune didn't think he'd ever get use to a serious and active Ren. It's like breaking a law of the universe or something. The numbers just didn't add up, no matter how you looked at them. Oh well. Best not to dwell too much on one of life's greater secrets.

Looking back at Pyrrha, both of them seem to avoid eye contact, feeling an unavoidable silence fall over the room. And this wasn't a normal silence that filled the room whenever they found themselves bored. It was an awkward silence. And an awkward silence between the both of them could only mean one thing.

"We're not done with our talk yet, are we?"

"No." Jaune answered, knowing what Pyrrha's talking about and looking negatively happy. "If I remember correctly, before Nora interrupted us, you're still mad at me for something. Wanna tell me what it was?"

Pyrrha answered with a soft _no_ , looking away from Jaune, but a few seconds later she stared back at him, seemingly lost. As if the next words for her to say were too hard to admit, But somewhere along the lines she found the courage to speak. "Did you even need me or was it all for nothing?"

Jaune couldn't seem to grasp the question. "What do you mean? I don't know—?"

"The training! Did you even need me!" she yelled in fury as Jaune took a step back, her face going blood red from anger. However, the sudden anger left as soon as it came, leaving behind a hollow shell.

Not exactly sure where her anger was coming from, Jaune moved closer. "Of course I needed you."

Still, Pyrrha couldn't seem to grasp that. So she looked away from him, sitting on his bed while rubbing her cheek with the cut. "But you figured out all these Aura powers on your own." Pyrrha sadly let her head fall, sinking into Jaune's bed even more. "What good was I? I couldn't even properly train my own friend after I said I would. He had to go learn by himself because I was such a worthless teacher."

Thoughts racing, Jaune thought back to Pyrrha's strained smiles during training, her desperate pleas for him to back out of the Vytal Tournament, and the anger toward him when she learned he'd been practicing behind their backs—behind her back. Everything started to come back to him.

Was Pyrrha mad at herself?

"But that's my fault." Jaune countered, voice firm. He had already considered and ached over this issue since creating Excalibur. "I shouldn't have needed to be trained to begin with. It's my fault for coming into Beacon with fake transcripts with zero Huntsmen training to back me up, not yours. I know that and _you_ know that."

Jaune's kind of hoping that pulled her out of her funk, but the effect seemed to do the opposite. If anything, it's sending her deeper in. "... Why aren't you mad at me for being such a lousy teacher?"

Hearing the question, he's quiet for a moment, unable to feel this anger that Pyrrha thought he had for her. It just wasn't there, no matter what anyone thought, and there's a simple reason for that. "Because you didn't give up on me. You believed in me even with all these doubts you had. You believed I could fight in the Vytal Tournament against all those leaders when I just asked you to trust in me. How can I even think to be mad at you?"

Pyrrha still didn't seem totally convinced so Jaune decided to let her on a little secret. "Did you know my own parents don't believe me. They're expecting me to come home any day now and give up on my dream on becoming a Huntsman. At least you had faith in me. Them? Nope."

That secret did seem to pull her back. "But I still couldn't teach you."

Seeing his chance to strike, Jaune went in for the kill.

"Hey, cheer up! You're a great teacher!" he smiled. "I may have created an Aura sword, but that didn't mean I knew how to use it. All those awesome moves you saw during our fight all came from _you_. Those dodges back there, yours! Those swings with my sword, yours again! And guess what else? _Who_ was the one that gave me my Aura in order to do all that? C'mon! Tell me!"

Widening her eyes, Pyrrha looked away from Jaune, unable to look him in the face, though her leader could see the beginnings of a soft smile on the corner of her lip. Finally! Still, she's being stubbornly quiet and he wouldn't let her be like that. Nope! He's getting that smile and small bubble of insecurity out of her if it killed him.

"C'mon, Pyrrha. I know you know." Jaune slid up to her on his bed, wrapping one arm around torso, and pulling her closer. She weakly struggled in his hold, and even more so when he rested his chin on her shoulder. "Who was it that gave me my power and hope in the first place? I'll give you a hint. She's the most incredible girl I know. Her face is even on my favorite cereal box." Jaune heard a soft mumble come from her, but didn't quite catch that. "Hn? What was that?"

"... Me." Pulling her closer, she turned over and hid her face in his shoulder. "Promise me you won't get too hurt in the tournament."

"Hey... I promised you I got stronger. What more do you want." Pyrrha answered by turning her back toward him again and Jaune's forced to laugh nervously, hugging her again like he did in the hallway the day before. "Fine, fine, I promise."

"And no more lying."

Tightening the hug, Jaune felt Pyrrha relax a little. "Arc's honor."

She seemed to settle deeper into the hug at the promise, warming up into the embrace. The awkwardness and tension drifted away. The rest of the night passed by uneventful as Ren and Nora return with Nora slung over Ren's shoulder after stopping her from breaking down more Beacon property. Ren simply told the two that Beacon's storeroom was already closed for the day and that they could discuss the plan later this week.

Jaune had no problem with that plan, but for some odd reason, he couldn't for the life of him figure out why Nora was clinging even tighter to Ren than usual. She actually fell asleep on his back that night, in the very same position. Not like Ren pushed or even tried to stop her. That only stumped him more.

Maybe he'd never understand those two.

...

The next morning, Pyrrha woke up first, feeling brand new and pleasantly surprised to find all her wounds and burns healed from the fight before. Better news, she found that her Aura had reached that spot on her cheek where Jaune's sword had cut her. Admittedly, she was worried for a moment there, worrying that her Aura may never again reach that spot. But luckily that didn't seem to be the case.

Not so soon after, the rest of Team JNPR woke up about an hour before classes start, giving them just enough time to accomplish little to nothing for the next half hour. Model students never. Sometimes, Pyrrha wished she could be outside, slaying Grimm instead of being trapped in Professor Port's morning class, listening to him go on and on about his extravagant youth. Maybe she could ask to have class outside? That'd be nice. But the champion knew she couldn't voice such a question without getting a few odds stares.

She envied Nora and her carefree ways.

Seeing her leader still fighting the edge between dream and reality, with Nora tugging Ren back down for _a few more minutes_ , Pyrrha walked around the room, searching for her school skirt. And as she's checking under each and everyone's bed, her hand came across a bag under Jaune's bed and she pulled it out. A From Dust Till Dawn hung loosely in her hand and the memories of her leader buying an assortment of Dust crystals came back after to her. After everything that happened in the past couple of days, this little subject must've gotten buried and overlooked.

Checking the bag, she's surprised to find only white Dust crystals. Dust crystals that were practically worthless for their impractical support in both battle and everyday life. Why would their leader want these?

"Jaune?" She got a sleepy _huh_. "What are you doing with these white Dust crystals?"

He appeared to wake up more to the question, rubbing away the sleep from his eyes. Just like her, he'd completely forgotten he bought those and sat up on the bed and took one out of the bag. He played with the shard between his finger with the gem reflecting an image of his face off the corner light, and he thought back to his earlier idea. It seemed so long ago.

Tossing the crystal in the air, Jaune grinned weakly. "I was going to do something with them, but it's just a crazy idea."

Out of nowhere, Ren caught the crystal, carefully studying their leader and his seemingly innocent smile. If he learned anything from yesterday's events, it's behind that smile lied something greater than sheer curiosity and he's not so quick to ignore it anymore. And with a simple flick of his fingers, the oh-so useless Dust shard fell back into the bag.

"After seeing you create a sword and gun out of Aura, I'm willingly to listen to your crazy idea." Ren reasoned, buttoning up his student outfit. Nora's right behind him, humming along and half-dressed. Even Pyrrha wanted to know more about this so called crazy idea. "So what is it?"

Looking between his teammates, Jaune pulled out another Dust crystal from the bag. "Well, you see, I want to find a way to store Aura into these Dust crystals and use them as a way of recharging when I'm running low on Aura since there's already nothing in them."

"And how do you plan to do that?" Nora asked.

"I have no idea. But give me some time and I'll figure it out!"

No one doubted him for even a moment when it came to Aura. Not anymore. And they generally accept that their leader probably could figure out a way to add Aura to a Dust crystal. If anyone at this point, it's him.

"Well, we better hurry before they stop serving breakfast." Pyrrha said, finding her skirt underneath Nora's pillow. "I don't know about you, but I'm famished."

"I bet you are after that fight yesterday." Nora grinned, leaning forward. She then noticed Pyrrha's bandaged-free arms. "Hey! You're not hurt anymore!"

Pyrrha looked down at her arms. "Yea. Looks like my Aura finally got around to taking care of my injuries."

"Interesting." Jaune suddenly noted, losing all sleepiness in a surprise effort to study Pyrrha's arms. He glared up at her seriously, concentrating on his Aura. "Pyrrha? Can you focus your Aura for me real quick?"

Not use to her leader being so serious, she did.

Jaune immediately felt her enormous Space crashing down on him, but he shrugged that sensation off, getting far too use to the feeling. He could now see Pyrrha's blood Aura all fine, unlike the day before where her Aura had taken a major beating from Supernova. There were no cracks in her Aura. The cut on her cheek had even healed where he had cut her with Excalibur.

So the effects of Aura based attacks weren't permanent? That's good to know.

Searching for his Aura notebook, Jaune found it beneath his pillow and began writing in haste. He stopped once he noticed no one's talking and that all his team's eyes were on him. Taking notes was so much easier when no knew he had awesome Aura control.

Nora then _awed_ at his notebook. "What's that?"

Holding the Aura notebook for his team to see, he shrugged. "It's my Aura notebook. Everything I've learned and discovered about Aura is all right here in my trusty notebook—oh! That reminds me! I got to add that Excalibur can cut through anything that has Aura!"

Scribbling down quickly in his notebook, the rest of Jaune's team couldn't help but stare at their leader, blinking not once, but _twice_ in confusion. It's strange. Real strange. Jaune had never one to focus on note-taking before, preferring to being on the other side of the spectrum. But when it came to Aura, he's like a totally different person.

Finished writing down his notes, Jaune closed the notebook with a satisfied sigh, excited at the idea of what else there's to learn about Aura. But for now! He's hungry! Fighting Pyrrha the day before really worked up an appetite and sleeping.

Finding his school outfit, Jaune looked out toward the hole in their hall, wondering if they should get that fixed. Nah! It gives the room character. At least he hoped it did. Never really got what that meant as a child. Still don't.

"Today nothing could go wrong!"

The rest of his team decide not to comment.

Never liking the idea of chancing Fate.

...

So breakfast turned out to be horrible with only cereal being served to the students. The chefs were still on strike from some flour-related mishap a couple days ago, and even Jaune felt sorry for Nora with her head sunk within the bland cereal bowl. At least he knew she's alive from the bubbles coming up from the milk. Oddly enough, both Ren and Pyrrha failed to comment on the strike, eating their bland cereal with stride and slightly paranoid filled eyes.

Probably best not to ask them about it.

Dipping his spoon into the meal, Jaune enjoyed, to the best of his abilities, the tasteless breakfast. And by enjoyed, he meant grimaced as he painstakingly swallowed the nutritious, but dirt-tasting bowl of cornflakes. Another spoon and he was all but ready to throw in the towel. The third spoonful was what did him in. And when he pushed the bowl away, his stomach _growled_ in protest, wanting food, dirt-tasting or not. Food was food! And he sighed with unpleasantness when he reached for the bowl again.

So breakfast was a major disaster, but he still held high hopes for the rest of the day.

...

Professor Port's class had a pop quiz that none of Team JNPR studied for.

Enough said.

...

Entering Dust class, Jaune sighed at the terrible day so far and went to grab the today's assignment, hoping to finish the work early and maybe get started on practicing adding Aura to some of the white Dust crystals he'd brought with Pyrrha. Now that she knew about his Aura skills, he's hoping together they could find some way to get this to work.

He grabbed the assignment and only made it a few steps toward her before a hand came out from behind and wrapped itself around his neck. Jaune saw Pyrrha waving nervously at him as he's being pulled away while Ruby's pulling his partner away. That could only mean one thing.

"Good!" Weiss huffed, pulling him toward _her_ work station with Jaune's head stuck in a headlock. She's totally not stealing him away from Pyrrha in favor of his interest in the subject and her knowledge of the subject or for the fact that Ruby's a _total_ klutz. Nope! "You got the assignment already. We can get started."

Jaune got out of the headlock and was about to argue his way out, but Weiss was glaring at him adorably, arms folded in a tight coil ready to burst if he even so much as argued. She even had one leg bent ever so slightly, ready for his poor shin.

Damn it.

"Fine..." he sighed, waving the assignment for her to grab. Weiss grabbed the assignment, allowed her perfect eyes to scan the paper in a professional manner, and then tossed the paper away in completely disinterest. "Hey! We kinda needed that!"

"We can finish that later!" she huffed, pulling out a vial of blue Dust from her pocket. "But for now, I've been creating a new batch of Ice Dust and I want to have someone to give me feedback. And Ruby's... not the best at giving feedback." There's a distinct Fire Dust explosion in the background and Weiss's glare slightly narrowed. "But you are, surprisingly. Now all we have to do is see what happens when this Dust is tested on our practice dummy."

"... But we didn't get a practice dummy?"

Weiss pretended not to hear that, holding a veil of blue Dust in front of Jaune with a small shake. She's waiting for something to happen with her cheeks slightly puffed out. A tiny _hmm_ came from her small glare, and when he said nothing, the _hmm_ grew in volume. Eventually, Jaune figured it out and tiredly lifted up his hand, sleeve pulled back.

Her mood brightened immediately. "You're so thoughtful, Jaune."

A dark cloud formed over him and his sad smile. "Yup, that's me alright. I'm just a bleeding heart of generosity."

Her new blue Dust creation had been terrifying cold. The results would lead to newer, colder ice attacks for her. And Jaune's shin made it out perfectly fine that Dust class.

 _Kick_!

"Ow! What was that for?!"

"You were staring at my scar! I don't like it when people do that!"

"Why? It really brings out your eyes. Really makes you look like a Snow Angel—no! Wait! I'm sorry—!"

 _Kick_!

...

Lunch time! Probably the only highlight of the day so far! What a miserable thought.

Now that he's away from his team and alone in the room with Blake for a change, after she had pounced on him from the shadows, Jaune finally felt like he could open up more. It's weird, but around Blake, Jaune felt like he could talk about anything. And he had a lot to talk about regarding his team. Of course he didn't notice Blake seemingly more interested in her tales of perversion.

Only half-listening to Jaune's rambling, Blake occasionally answered in one to five worded responses. Rumor had it that she even had a six worded response. Of course no knew if that was true.

Walking around his room in a circle, Jaune couldn't keep still. "So my team's been real great recently and I don't know how I can ever repay them. What do you think I should do?"

Twitching her bow, she looked up from book. "And exactly how have they been so great recently?"

Jaune rubbed his neck, looking happy and sad at the same time. "They learned about this secret I had that totally changes everything they knew about me, yet, they were so accepting! It was like dropping a weight off my shoulders when I told them. How can I ever repay them for that?"

Blake finally lowered her book; eyes widening a smudge with her bow twitching fiercely. She then settled down her emotions, getting back to her book with the words never once crossing her vision. "How big was the secret?"

Jaune threw his hands up! "Big! Real big! Life changing big!"

Knowing exactly how Jaune felt, but not knowing what he could do, she decided to find her answer in the perverted book she's reading. "You could repay them by helping them get stronger, I guess?" Not the best advice. Stupid book!

She saw off the corner of her eye Jaune halting completely. He honestly stopped to think about it, contemplating her words heavily. A few moments later, he became all energetic, almost reaching Nora-levels. Blake had absolutely no idea what's going on anymore.

"That's perfect! I can help them get stronger! Thanks, Blake! You've been a great help!"

"I do what I can." _Page Flip_! "I do charge by the hour by the way since you're cutting into my reading time."

"What? I let you read in our room!" he argued, pointing at the shelf of books that had steadily grew in number. "You practically live here now! I've _found_ some your clothes in our closet. Those don't just get there by themselves!"

"You're just seeing things."

"What about the time I found you asleep on my bed?"

"That's because we're such great friends..." she dawdled lazily.

Jaune paused, crossing his arms at his _friend_ , realization dawning on him. "Do you even know my last name?"

Blake, ever so slightly, peered up from her book, face totally blank. "... I won't even dignify that with a response."

Remembering the awesome advice that she just gave him, he decided to drop it, for now. Besides, that flour strike was still going on with the chefs and if he wanted to get a decent meal for both lunch and dinner, then he'd have run down and catch the next airship to Vale or he'd go hungry tonight. Not to mention, he needed to pick up food for his team. A hungry Nora was a whimpering and loud Nora.

So a little teasing was what he'd leave Blake with.

"Oh! Okay." Grinning, Jaune waved to Blake jokingly, unaware that she couldn't see his smile behind her book when he playfully gave her a warning. "Maybe I'll just have to kick you out then?"

Jaune, curse his naivety, meant it as a joke, but Blake didn't hear like that. No. For her, nothing major happened except one her nine lives just kicking the bucket from the surprise heart attack!

Palms shaking in fear, Blake lowered her book just in time to see Jaune shut the door with a soft _click_ and her doubts skyrocketed! "No."

No! She couldn't lose this room! Half her books were here already and she already set up a nice corner in their closet to take nice catnaps! She couldn't go back to read outside! That's just plain crazy! Yang's out there! That dumb corgi's out there! There's only one sane thing left to do!

Getting up, she shut her book closed; glaring at the door Jaune had left from. A strong fire burned in her normally passive eyes, inflaming her passion!

...

Returning from Vale with time to spare before lunch was over; Jaune entered his team's room to find a large banner hanging on the wall with only his first name written in big bold letters, while his second name had been cruelly crossed out like if somehow didn't _know_ what his last name was and had hoped he accept a big black smudge next to his name. But it's the smell of something disgusting that captured Jaune's other sense more powerful than the cruelly drawn banner.

It almost made him gag his recently devoured meal.

"Welcome back." Blake popped out of his team's closet, shutting it before Jaune could see inside. "I made you a cake because we're such great friends."

Pausing, Jaune couldn't help but smile with a small twitch. Something's not right. In fact, his instincts screamed at him to run. Like now! Her voice had sounded robotic to the point of a B-level movie actor. Apparently, she had been practicing for something. And Jaune had a sneaky suspicion it had to do with the banner that spelled Jaune Black Smudge, the terrible smelling cake in her hands, and forced smile that looked like it hurt.

Maybe if he turned around right now, he could _just_ get away.

"Here." Blake said flatly, giving him a piece before he could so much as reach the handle. "Try some."

Did he have a choice?

Sighing, he took a bite and his taste-buds exploded with an avalanche of flavor, and not in a good way. Tears swelled up in his eyes and he forced himself not to cough in order not to be rude, even when the cake tasted like Death had personally blessed the morsel himself. Oh, sweet, sweet merciful death. What a miracle that'd be right now.

Swallowing the cake, Jaune shivered. "What's in this?"

"Oh?" Blake thought, enjoying her own creation with a simple spoonful. That's just not right. "Well, there's eggs and milk, but there wasn't any flour. So I needed a substitute. I used fish. I really like fish. So I thought it would taste great in cake. And it does."

"That's great, Blake!" he grimaced, feeling the fish cake travel down into his poor stomach. Jaune missed the taste of dirt-flavored cereal. "If you would excuse me... I need to meet Pyrrha before combat class starts."

"Aren't you going to eat anymore?"

"Oh?" he waved. "I'll eat the rest later." Shut up, mouth! "After classes are over. Don't want to get too full."

"Really?" she sniffed, finishing her slice. So far, so good! Operation: Stay in this room was on track! "Very well, I'll wrap it up and save your half for later."

"... Great."

...

Jaune never ran so fast to class before. He'd never been this early before either. Either way he didn't care. The taste of that fish cake was still heavy in his mouth and—ugh! Yup, the fish cake just landed in his stomach. Jaune could feel his Aura working overtime to expel all the deadly toxins of whatever else Blake had added to that death cake. And when he sat down, to give his Aura time to work, he relaxed into the hard chair with a sweat, glad that class didn't start for another ten minutes. It's not until he's been shaken away by his partner that he realized that he had fallen asleep or had passed out. Both worked fine.

"Jaune?" Pyrrha appeared concern, noticing her leader's face a bit pale. "Are you okay?"

His heart's racing, his stomach might explode any given moment, and he felt cold everywhere, but that might be from Weiss's experimental Dust veil, but the point of the matter was, _he's not okay_. Not even close.

But before he could voice his concerns and ask for a hug, everyone's entering the class with Professor Goodwitch already down at the sparring arena, waiting for the students to take their seats. Pyrrha couldn't even ask again as Nora bounced her way between them, shuffling her feet. Ren's right behind her, ignoring the way a pair of silvery eyes seemed to be trying to glare a hole through his skull from across the room.

And to make matters worse. "Jaune Arc! You are up first!"

Feeling his luck continuing to plummet, Jaune wondered why this day was turning out so _bad_. It couldn't possibly get any worse! He already had Blake's cooking slowing his down!

Accepting his fate, Jaune focused his Aura to completely block out Blake's fishcake side-effects, burping a little before feeling his muscles and senses boosting from the added Aura control. He barely made it down the arena when Professor Goodwitch slid up her glasses in wonder.

"Mr. Arc? Where is your weapon?"

That's right, he forgot to get it. Couldn't use his Aura attacks thanks to Ren's plan, but there was a problem. "Pyrrha's using it."

There's a general pause in the room before Professor Goodwitch continued, ignoring Yang's snickering coming up from the stands. "And why is that?"

"Uh—?"

"Because it's a team exercise." Nora shouted, quick-thinking to the rescue. Ren's hands were already too late to stop her. "We're switching weapons! Pyrrha's using Jaune's, Ren's using mine, and I'm using Ren's!"

Hearing that Pyrrha was going to handle Jaune's sword, there's a teasing wolf call from Yang, smirking largely at Pyrrha who suddenly grew three sizes smaller at the blonde bombshell's amused grin. Glynda decided to let Yang slide this time, more interested in this new team exercise. It sounded oddly appealing. A lesson on not only relying on one weapon. She might even implement it into the school curriculum for next semester.

"... And is Mr. Arc using Miss Nikos's?"

"Nope!" Nora paused, tongue sticking out. "Jaune thought it would be a great idea to practice using his fist! Between you and me, he's not that strong!" Only his team and Professor Goodwitch didn't laugh out loud in the room. Damn it, Nora! "Go get them, Jaune!"

Feeling crushing defeat, Jaune twitched a vein filled smile at his bubbly teammate. " _Thank you_ , Nora."

"No problem!" she grinned harmlessly. Jaune knew better than to trust that grin. He'd sooner trust a Beowulf not to claw his face out.

Coughing into her hand, the room grew quiet and Glynda flipped through her scroll. "Very good then. Now, who should you fight against? How about Russel Thrush? What do you say, young man? Up for the challenge?"

Cardin's team member nodded and called for his daggers from the weapon's lockers. There was a confident smirk on his face; something Jaune would expect from Cardin's team, but Cardin himself didn't have any such smirk. He just observed him with cautious eyes and crossed arms.

Reaching the arena, Russel switched his daggers to a blue setting that functioned very much like Weiss's weapon. Professor Goodwitch then nodded and signaled them to begin with Russel immediately charging at Jaune. What the Arc found strange was that Russel wasn't actively using his Aura since he couldn't feel his Space, nor could he see his Aura.

Increasing his Aura control, Jaune felt his body respond and he dodged the first swipe of his daggers with a casual sidestep, all the while comparing Russel's speed to Pyrrha. The difference couldn't be further apart or maybe his Aura control gave him an unfair edge? Didn't matter, he dodged another and another before ducking under another missed slash.

Well, he did want to practice with his fists, anyways. And seemed like a better time than any other.

Landing a sloppy strike on his body, Jaune wasn't prepared for the amount of force he unleashed on Cardin's teammate, pushing him more forcefully back than expected. He especially didn't plan for Russel's Aura to finally kick in, surrounding Jaune in a decent wave of Space. Now the blond could see his olive green Aura and all its randomness. Seriously, Russel's Aura failed to stay still even for a moment, constantly moving like wind.

However, Jaune felt angry.

The entire time Russel wasn't using his Aura against him! Thinking he was weak!

Concentrating even harder on his Aura, he really fought the urge to create Excalibur and charged straight for Russel, dodging another slow slash and landing a fist to his chest, following up with a quick swipe of the legs, throwing Cardin's teammate off-balance. Russel fell back a step and narrowly blocked another powerful fist from Jaune, countering with his own cut from his dagger running up Jaune's forearm.

The cut's cold, but not as cold compared to Weiss's experimental Dust that morning, and the cut wasn't something his Aura couldn't heal in seconds. Hell! Russel didn't even cut his skin that deep to begin with. Hardly worthy of being called a cut, more of a scratch if someone ask him! Without his great-great grandfather's sword holding his Aura back, he's so much faster and stronger. Was this how powerful his Aura control was without Crocea Mors constantly rejecting and messing up his control? Did he _really_ improve this much?

Did Aura really grant such _power_.

Dodging a swipe aimed for his lower chest, Jaune grabbed Russel by the wrist, and pulled him with his foot out to drop him to the ground. The move worked, but with Russel twisting his body during the fall to cut Jaune right on his hand, freezing it into a block of solid ice.

Smirking, Russel saw Jaune casually looked at his hand before shrugging nonchalantly and delivering a devastating blow with his frozen hand at his stomach, breaking the ice in the process. Truly, his Aura control gave him a general edge. Sadly, he did miss having access to Excalibur and Shooting Star, it felt wrong to fight without them.

They're a part of Jaune Arc—a part of his soul.

"Winner! Jaune Arc!" Glynda called the match, pushing her glasses up with a small smile. She stopped the boy before he could make it to the stairs. "I must say, Mr. Arc. You've certainly improved. I'm a little impressed."

Jaune grinned at the rare praise, looking embarrassed. Honestly, after fighting Pyrrha, the fight wasn't all that challenging to him. His opponent had been neither fast nor strong. "Thanks, Professor Goodwitch! I've been practicing."

"And it shows." Glynda lightly nodded before flipping through her scroll for the next round.

Grinning, Jaune thought about perhaps actually practicing with his fists. His moves had been sloppy at best, but Russel hadn't really given him much a problem, so they kind of balanced out. And he never knew when fighting with his fist could come in handy. And it wasn't like he was going to be using Crocea Mors for the foreseeable future.

Hn? He'd think about it.

Walking up the stairs, Jaune passed by Team RWBY, not paying them much attention until something very interesting caught his eye. Sitting there in a _Go Team JNPR!_ shirt was Blake. She even had a hat and flag with their name on it, proudly in display for any person to see, mainly her confused and a bit peeved team members. Blake hardly paid them little attention, waving around the flag in more spirit than he'd ever seen her have.

This couldn't possibly come back to bite him? Right?

"Go, Jaune!" Blake flatly praised, waving the flag faster. "You're the best when it comes to fist-fighting."

Damn it!

Jaune couldn't ignore the sudden intense burning coming from Yang sitting next to Blake, or how majorly dangerous her glare looked. But he could try, damn it! He could try! And try he did. Not even once glancing back at Yang who suddenly had a very unusual thinking face, scrunching her nose up on some intense ideas that floated around that dangerous noggin of hers. And while whistling away back to his team, Jaune barely had time to sit down before the next fighter was called.

"Lie Ren! You're up!"

Sighing, Ren looked to Nora, waiting for her to call her hammer since apparently he's stuck using it for the foreseeable future. It came and Jaune felt him using Aura to lift the darn thing, throwing it over his shoulder in a cool guy pose. It didn't fool him. He could see the strain it had on his Aura. Darn thing must weigh a ton.

Reaching the arena, Ren leaned on the handle of Magnhild, using the weapon's weight to support him and his laziness. He awaited his opponent, eyes ignoring the silvery ones glaring down at him from the stands with unchecked eagerness.

Glynda looked up from her scroll. "Any volunteers to fight Lie Ren—?"

"Me! I'm ready!" Ruby suddenly yelled, appearing in the arena in a flash of rose petals with Crescent Rose already locked and loaded. She glared adorably at Ren who didn't need to pretend that he was ignoring her glare.

He just was.

Glynda huffed. "Very well! Get ready!"

Hating the problem Nora got him into _this_ time, Ren concentrated on his Aura to lift the massively heavy hammer, having absolutely no idea how he was going to hit a sugar-powered, super-hyper, super-speed marshmallow. They might as tie his hands and set him on fire.

"Begin!"

Disappearing in a flash of rose petals, Ruby appeared right behind Ren, already swinging Crescent Rose at her rival who was having trouble lifting the hammer.

Revenge shall be hers!

Giving up on actually being able to lift the hammer on time, Ren grabbed the handle and used it as a swing to propel himself forward and not only dodge Ruby's scythe, but also do a nice one-eighty turn and come up to Ruby's opening as her scythe crashed into the handle of Magnhild. He aimed a well-timed fist for her stuck form, casually touching the tip of Ruby's weapon on the blade as her weapon was still connected with Nora's. She dodged the fist, clearly, but Ren already pushed some of his unique energy into like last time. Jaune was the only one who could see this with Nora literally twitching in her seat from excitement.

This time Ruby appeared right behind him, then to his side, and his next side, and so on and so forth. She's using her super-speed to confuse him and Ren's too slothful to try and keep up with her. His eyes managed to track her increasing rose petals, but that was his limit. So instead, he settled to silently wait for his opening, finding it when Ruby's crashed right into him from the front, gun barrel pressed directly at his chest.

"Got you!" she yelled, grinning like a madwoman!

 _Click_!

Nothing happened again like last time.

"What?!" Ruby cried, unable to fire even from point-blank range. It's not fair! Not fair she said!

Her eyes then widen when Ren grabbed her by the hood and pulled her closer to a nice well-timed fist heading straight for her adorable nose. She barely managed to get away; leaving behind a rose petal in her wake, but not before Ren added more of his secret Semblance to her hood.

"You're too slow." Ren said flatly, fighting a smirk at her puffed cheeks while baiting her.

Ruby's eyes widen! Now this jerk was dissing her super-speed! First he denied her rightfully earned rematch and now he's making fun of her Semblance! Now it's personal!

"I'll show you fast!" And she's gone with a field of rose petals littering the arena. "Just you wait!"

Ren, not able to keep up with her speed, casually walked over to Nora's hammer, barely lifting the weapon. He then felt for his Semblance, waiting for the right moment, and the moment was _now!_

Coming up to Ren's blind spot, Ruby pressed a button to switch Crescent Rose from scythe to sniper mode as she ran around his form in super-speeds. Ren calmly waited for the inevitable _not again_ and let a small smirk adorn his features when he heard Ruby yell in a sudden panic from quite possibly stumbling on her own red hood. No. He _knew_ she tripped on her red hood.

Tripping on the threads of her cloak, Ruby tumbled across the arena floor, skidding a few feet as she lost control over Crescent Rose from another weapon jamming. She lied flat on her back, eyes shut from the dizzy pain, wondering what exactly happened to Crescent Rose _this_ time. Then she remembered she was still in a fight and hardly had time to react before a weight's dropped upon her.

Ruby barely opened her eyes just in time to see Ren drop Magnhild onto her tiny form with the handle holding her down. _Crash_! He then calmly sat down on the hammer as Ruby struggled to get free from the added weight, kicking her feet adorably in protest. A futile effort at best and Ren decided to reward her for her brave, yet fruitless endeavor by softly poking her on the forehead.

"Sorry, Ruby, perhaps another time?"

"Winner! Lie Ren!"

"No!" Ruby stopped her struggle to melt into a glob of sadness and gloom. There's a slight twitch in her and Ren's a little worried for her well-being. Only a little. Ruby's not his teammate. Not his problem. Let Yang deal with it. He already had Nora.

Coolly standing up, he balanced Magnhild on both his shoulders with only one hand holding the hammer steady. Somewhere in the background he could hear Nora cheering, and even Blake? Of course her cheering consisted of emotionless _go_ and _yeas_ , but they're there alright.

How strange?

Using his Aura to carry Nora's hammer up the stairs, Ren passed by Team RWBY, mildly interested in their conversation when his name popped up again, especially when both Weiss and Yang were glaring at Blake who didn't seem to notice or was bluntly ignoring them in favor for his attention.

"Way to go, Ren." Another emotionless cheer came from Blake with a Team JNPR flag and Yang's immediately on her case.

"Blake! Who's side are you on?!"

"Yup." Ren thought. "Definitely strange."

...

History class couldn't come fast enough for Jaune Arc.

After experiencing what he dubbed his worst day at Beacon Academy, the Arc was more than ready to sit back and relax in Professor Oobleck's class. Maybe take some notes. Perhaps listen to some gruesome history lesson. Anything to make the day end that much faster. On the plus side, his stomach finally finished breaking down the contents of Blake's fishy cake of death.

Head thrown back, the Arc sighed, mood completely killed. His teammates were acting differently. Nora's gushing over Ren's usage of her hammer in combat class by attempting to squeeze his muscles. Said Lie calmly allowed her to do so, cheek rested flatly on his palm while Nora poked and prodded to her evil heart's content. He had this little smile that's almost hidden from the world. It resembled an oasis in a desert.

Wondering what his partner was up to, he glanced over and found Pyrrha preparing for class, notebook and pencils neatly stacked together. How she did such a thing forever remained a mystery to him, but it did inspire him to reach into his bag and pull out his Aura notebook. Jaune wanted to brainstorm over some ideas for his Aura-to-Dust theory.

Not to mention he needed to add the term _Supernova_ to his list of Aura-based techniques. He admitted that it did have a nice ring to it. Rolled off the tongue quite easily. Definitely better than the unnamed Aura attack. It was just better.

Writing ideas and finalizing little notes from yesterday's fight, he didn't notice Ren's eyes focused on his notebook. The attention didn't last long, but the Lie was deeply interested in reading what his Fearless Leader had written over the course of his Aura studies. And honestly, who wouldn't after witnessing his amazing feats. Maybe, just maybe, the ninja might be able to solve a certain issue he had with his Aura. And possibly get a boost out of it. Couldn't hurt to try.

"Ren?" Nora asked, squeezing extra hard on his arm. "What are you looking at?"

Finding his attention captured once more, Ren lightly smiled at the ecstatic girl and calmly _booped_ her on the nose. "Nothing, Nora."

She pouted. "You're lying."

"Am I? I didn't notice."

She had a hard time being angry at his dumb, handsome smile.

...

Time for dinner!

And both the males of Team JNPR were starving!

Reaching an empty table, Jaune and Ren wait for Nora and Pyrrha to get their food, bland as it was. And it was definitely bland. Darn this strike! It was just flour, Jaune thought, how bad could it have been? What? Did some irresponsible students cover the whole kitchen darn in flour? Damn them! If only he was their leader! He'd make them do things!

Poking his sandwich with a spoon to kill some time, a preemptive fist was slammed down onto their table, getting a quick _yelp_ from Jaune and nothing from Ren as he checked the sandwich contents for mayo. Ren really hated mayo on his sandwiches. Bland was one thing, but mayo was another.

Looking up, Jaune came face-to-face with a slightly angry Yang, Weiss who didn't seem to know what was going on, and a Ruby who couldn't stop glaring at Ren who finally looked up!

"We need to talk." Yang demanded, sitting down. Jaune didn't get a chance to ask why. "I'll cut straight to the chase! There can only be one fist-fighting blond in this school, and it's me! So stop trying to steal my image. And don't lie! I know you are."

"What?" Jaune asked, having absolutely _no_ idea what she was talking about or where that _even_ came from. "I have no idea what you're talking about. What image? And why would I want it?"

"I don't know..." she admitted, but she pointed her finger at him anyways. "But I know you are!"

"Now look." Jaune reasoned, thinking maybe a good joke would calm her down. Yang loved jokes. "Just _Yang_ on for a second."

The effect probably would've calmed her down if Weiss hadn't actually _laughed_ at that pun. Even if the laugh had been a quiet giggle, it was still a laugh and not a groan that everyone came to expect with a pun. On one side, that's three! Take that Yang! On the other end, Yang's eyes just turned a lovely shade of red.

Nora and Pyrrha, their presence would be most welcomed! Any time! Now would be phenomenal.

But what really hammered the final nail in Jaune's coffin was Blake's walking over to him with a forced smile that filled Jaune with the feeling of impending doom washing all over him. She then sealed his fate my lightly bumping her fist on his shoulder in front of Yang.

"Hey there, best buddy!"

No! Dear Monty! No! Why him! What did he do or _say_ to deserve this?!

Goodbye, cruel world.

Faking a heart attack, Yang used her fingers to count the crimes Jaune's guilty of. "First you hate dogs, then you start to copy my fighting style, then my hair color, next my jokes, and now you're trying to steal Blake!" she cried, pointing accusingly at the guilty-innocent Team JNPR leader. "That's one thing too many! Right, Weiss?"

Staring at the accused with his big pleading eyes, which she misinterpreted as a signal for help, rather than a signal not to say or do anything to make Yang even angrier, Weiss recalled what Jaune said earlier in Dust class.

 _It really brings out your eyes. Really makes you look like a snow angel._

Weiss glared and looked away, pouting her lip. "Jaune's... not _that_ bad."

 _Gasp_!

"Not you too!" Slamming her fist on the table, Yang felt her anger rising. "Now you're trying to steal my team away!"

"Yea!" Ruby yelled, not even giving Jaune any sort of attention as she glared adorably at Ren from the other side of the table, cheeks puffed. "We're onto you!"

Both the males of Team JNPR sideways stared at each other, wondering how they got themselves into these messes. Did some celestial entity have it out for them? Did Monty not approve? Was it Nora's fault?

"I'm watching you! C'mon, Ruby!" Yang grabbed and carried out Ruby underneath her arm with the latter glaring at Ren. Weiss followed after, not sure whose side to be on. And Blake's sitting with them, reading one of her books with the rare moment of both Yang and Ruby not close by to ruin her chance to read in the Mess Hall. And it definitely had nothing to do with becoming Jaune Black Smudge's new best friend.

She wouldn't even dignify that with a thought.

"Ren? I think I just made a rival?"

"Join the club."

...

Running up to Yang and Ruby, Weiss grabbed the brawler's arm, turning her around to meet her face-to-face. She had questions, and they had the answers. But mostly she had questions. "And what was _that_ back there?"

"Payback." Yang huffed simply, frowning in an angry way.

Weiss felt the need to pull her hair. "Payback for what?!" Yang didn't answer, letting the silence tick on by. Perhaps a different approach was in order. "Look, you're both obviously not thinking clearly. How about we just go to our room and relax? Then we can talk about your random outburst with Jaune back there."

"You _would_ take his side."

Weiss threw her hands up. "I'm not taking anyone's side, because there is no side to take! You're not making any sense right now. Both of you aren't!" Pausing, she pointed at her careless leader, being calm and rational. "I can sort of understand Ruby with the way Ren keeps wiping the floor with you—!"

"Hey!"

"—But I'm not seeing the connection for you, Yang."

Pouting stubbornly, she looked away with her arms crossed defiantly. Weiss didn't fold, tapping her foot with all the patience of an angry saint. Eventually, the brawler relented, but still refused to look back at her. "He hurt Ruby's feelings and hates dogs."

The heiress snorted, not even for a second believing that lie. "I'm pretty sure I remember _hearing_ Jaune apologize for that... and so what if he hates dogs. Blake hates dogs. And you don't hate her."

"He's copying my fighting style!"

"So? You should be flattered. Intimidation is the another form of flattery. And it's not like he's very good at it. Poor guy is just trying to learn something new. You should be more supportive like Blake." Yang twitched at the sound of her partner's name, and Weiss's eyes narrow. Her heiress tongue clicked suspiciously. "And Blake's seems to like him."

A tick mark appeared above Yang's eye. "Will you please stop talking about Blake!"

Rattling her head for ideas, a Lightning Dust shard lit up above Weiss's head, and a rare, teasing smile began to dawn on her usual controlled expressions. "Oh my gosh! Wait a minute! This has nothing to do with him learning to fight with his hands, hurting Ruby's feelings, or even Zwei! You're jealous he's stealing your partner's attention!"

"I am not!" Yang yelled, still refusing to make eye contact.

But Weiss ignored her, actually smiling at the irony. "Wow! Yang Xiao Long, jealous of Jaune Arc, of all people. And all because he steals a little bit of her partner's attention away."

 _"A little bit?!"_ Whelp, Weiss finally got Yang to look at her, and damn was Yang's eyes a fierce shade of red. "Ever since he allowed Blake to read in their room, that's all she ever goes and does! First it's breakfast, and then classes, then his room for lunch, and finally more classes, followed by dinner and then sleep. He sees more of her than I do!"

On some strange level, Weiss could understand where Yang's sudden anger was coming from. From a weird point-of-view, it did look like Jaune Arc was trying to steal away Yang's partner's attention. The fighting with his fist must've been the tiny nudge that pushed Yang over the edge. But on the other hand, Weiss could understand some of Blake's plight. She never truly liked the room since Zwei had been there since day one.

However, that didn't mean poor Jaune had to be stuck in the crossfires. "That's still no reason to suddenly declare a rivalry with the guy."

Yang reached for the door to their room, casting Weiss a glare over her shoulder. "What ever happened to him being Mr. tall, blond, and straggly?"

Weiss hummed, crossing her arms in a way that diverted attention away from her puffed cheeks. "He's still all that... just surprisingly nice and fun to talk to once you get past all the obnoxious flirting."

Hmph. "I can see arguing with you is pointless!"

"You're acting like a child—!"

 _Slam_!

Taking a deep breath, Weiss rubbed her temple as a headache began to form. She looked over when she heard her partner's obvious _ahem_ , pretending for a split-moment that she was back at the Schnee Dust Company and not dealing with all this drama nonsense. Corporate takeovers weren't as headache inducing as this.

Ruby fidgeted in place, eyes stubbornly curious as she twiddled her fingers together. "Ren doesn't really wipe the floor with me, does he?"

Weiss sighed with a deadpanned expression. "Ruby, he _literally_ dropped a hammer on you and then sat down while you struggled to move."

...

Reaching his room, Jaune's prepared to fall right asleep, glad that this damn day was finally over. A goodnight's sleep should wash away all his troubles. So he's a little surprised to enter his team's room and find Blake reading a book to a sleepy Nora and no one else.

"And the big bad Ursa knocked on Big Blue Riding Cloak's leaf house, demanding she open up or he would burn her house down with his laser eyes."

"Really?" Nora asked, holding her blanket over her chin. "She didn't let him in? Did she?"

"I don't know." she answered, turning the page. "Let's see."

Nope! Not going to deal with! He never saw anything!

Heading straight for bed, Jaune pretended that Blake wasn't here, instead hiding beneath the covers and waiting for Ren and Pyrrha to show up and make the world make sense again. His sweet covers would protect him from the harsh outside world. And he almost fell asleep until Blake poked him on the shoulder. Maybe if he ignored her, she'd go away?

"Hey? Aren't you going to finish your piece of cake? It'll go bad if you don't."

"Cake?" Nora bounced from her bed, sleepiness but a dream of the past. "You have cake! Can I have some?!"

Jaune's very tempted to let Nora have some after that stunt in Professor Goodwitch's class. Really tempted! But a damn powerful memory smacked him hard on the back of the head.

 _You're the greatest leader ever! The greatest! Well make sure you win!_

A good leader sacrificed himself for the good of his team. Those were his words? Weren't they? He said that to Ozpin's face.

Damn it, Nora!

Entering their room later, Pyrrha spotted her team leader hiding under his bed covers, shivering like no tomorrow. She crossed the room, noting a snoring Nora, and lightly tapped him on the shoulder. "How was your day, Jaune?"

"I don't wanna talk about!"

...

Waking up to the bright, morning sun, Jaune quickly hid under his covers from pure instinct, expecting Blake to pop out from some hidden shadow, lurking with promises of fish cake and who knew what else she had tucked away in her bag of not-goodies! He didn't know why! But she'd gone mad! Mad he said!

Eventually, when he believed the coast was clear, Jaune came out from under his covers and found only Ren in the room with Nora and Pyrrha nowhere in sight. The day's still early with classes about an hour away and the Lie was casually flipping through his Aura notebook, looking positively interested in the words he'd written. He's already dressed in his school uniform, making the Arc wonder if Blake's concoction kept him from beating Nora and Pyrrha awake. He wouldn't be too surprised if that turned out to be true. And it's not until Ren looked up from the notebook with a look on interest and whimsical spark that Jaune felt his luck finally turning around.

"I might have a few ideas."

* * *

 **Author Notes:** Edited **\- 1/11/2018**


	9. Fog

**Disclaimer:** I own nothing of RWBY.

* * *

 **Fog**

 **By: Imyoshi**

Several things didn't make sense the moment Jaune Arc woke up— _did not_!

First and foremost, Pyrrha and Nora had beaten him up and he's dangerously tempted to check his scroll and see if the Grimm have finally overthrown humanity.

Second, the lazy bastard actually looked interested at whatever he was reading in his Aura notebook, instead of coolly relaxing on his bed and trying to avoid any pointless work.

And finally, Ren actually had some input to share without being directly asked or forced by Nora.

Betting on the fact that no screams of panic or waves of smoke appeared before him or outside his team's window, Jaune reluctantly accepted that the Grimm have not in face taken over, and welcomed this rare offer of odd luck, resolved not to poke the universe on one its very rare days off anymore than usual. Monty wouldn't appreciate that.

"What kind of ideas?" Jaune sat up with a heavy yawn, checking his scroll for the time. Class was a little more than two hours away. He actually woke up pretty early. A personal best!

Sitting down on his bed, Ren poked at a small detail that Jaune had written. "Well, first you wrote that you have learned to control the brightness of your Aura. I was wondering how bright you can make your Aura. Would you mind showing me?"

Fighting off a tired sigh, Jaune cracked his neck with urgency. It was too damn early for this. But for Ren's personal curiosity, he waved one hand forward; easily creating Supernova without effort—practically second nature by now.

Ren couldn't tell at first how bright the Aura sphere was with the room already basked in light from the sun, but then his leader carelessly weakened his control and the room became deathly bright, to the point Ren could barely keep his eyes open, resorting to using his forearm to shield away the blinding light. Jaune didn't even so much as bat an eyelash, far too use to his Aura's glow. Such things didn't bother him anymore.

If Ren thought this was bright, he couldn't wait to show him when it was pitch-dark.

Snuffing out Supernova, the room returned to normal and Ren blinked a couple of times, restoring his vision very slowly. Damn that light burned and Jaune easily waved it off, searching for his school uniform instead while wondering how he lost to Nora and Pyrrha beating him up. Little things like that shouldn't happen. They were the lazy ones. It just had to be Blake's fish cake. She must've poisoned it.

Yawning, he found his shirt underneath Nora's pillow, wondering why everything that went missing usually had to do with Nora. "So? Why'd you want me to do that? Not that I don't like showing off, but it's a little too early for this."

Ren blinked, hoping the two Jaune's merge into one soon. "Really? I need to explain to you why I asked you to do that?" His answer came to his leader almost falling asleep on Nora's bed. "Very well. Don't you see that your Aura's brightness could be used as a weapon?"

That seemed to wake Jaune up, interested on anything Aura related that he didn't already know. "How?"

"Easy." He flipped through a page of Jaune's Aura notebook. "Here you wrote you got blinded by your Aura the first time you created those Aura spheres, but now you're used to it. I'm one-hundred percent sure no one on Remnant, except maybe Nora, Pyrrha, and I, are even remotely ready for your Aura's brightness. You could blind your opponents in the Vytal Tournament and take them down before they could react."

Considering Ren's words, Jaune actually nodded at the idea, wondering why he never thought of that. It really was nice having a well of infinite knowledge for a teammate. So insightful. So perfect. So Ren. So very much Lie Ren.

Grinning, Jaune began the dreaded search for his school pants. "That's perfect! They'll never see it coming. Zap! Blinded by my Aura! Hehe, that's a great idea!"

"It did illuminate the room before I could react and shield my eyes."

Pausing, Jaune created a Supernova in his palm, allowing the ball to hover aimlessly. Pursed lips and a thoughtful idea later, he began condensing the sphere into a smaller form, pushing his current Aura control to its utmost limits. A lack of control allowed for the brightness to go unchallenged. What if he pressured the sphere so tightly and then forwent control altogether? If less control made his Aura brighter, then no Aura control over a Supernova should allow the Aura sphere to collapse and burst forth, showering everything in a tunnel of light. Of course there was only one possible way to find out if such a reaction would happen.

Only major downside he foresaw was probably not getting his Aura back.

"Illuminate? I like that word." Thinking playfully with a grin, he continued to compress the Supernova in his hands. "Hey, Ren? What's the brightest thing around? Is it our sun?"

Flipping through another page, Ren easily answered without effort. "No. That would be a quasar. It was a lesson Professor Oobleck went over about astronomy. They apparently illuminate—?!"

"Illuminate... Quasar!" Jaune released the condensed Supernova, allowing his control to completely slip and free the Aura sphere to explode in a spark of absolute white, covering their entire room in a glow of warmth and intense brightness. When the light finally faded away, Jaune spotted Ren and almost laughed. "Where did you get those sunglasses—no! Why do you have those sunglasses?"

Fixing his pink shades, Ren somehow made the nauseating color look stylish, simply glaring at his leader from the very edge. "I never make the same mistake twice."

"Yea, sorry about that." Jaune laughed. He wasn't sorry and he's certain Ren knew that. In a good mood, he searched for his pants and what did he know! They're right under Nora's bed! Why was he not surprised? "Would you mind adding that to my notes? Gotta remember that one."

Allowing his leader to get away with trying to blind him— _for now_ —Ren did just that, amazed at the list of things Jaune could do with his Aura once he found said page. A gun, a sword, a sphere that's basically a bomb, and now what's essentially a powerful flash bang. Simply amazing. Ren would even go as far as to say extraordinaire.

Going over the notes on the technique page, Ren spotted something that barely caught his attention. He would've normally disregarded the note altogether if said note currently didn't have it out to get him with her one-hundred and twenty pounds of adorableness.

"Ruby's the one who helped you create Shooting Star?"

Finding his tie within Nora's pillowcase, the Arc simply shrugged. "She doesn't know about my Aura control if that's what you're asking. I just asked her to help explain how a gun works. I had to actually figure out how to shoot Aura out of my hand on my own. It's not as easy as it looks." Jaune lazily traced his fingers to form the Aura gun. " _This_ right here took some experimenting until I finally got it right. My Aura kept blowing in my face every time I messed up! And when I finally got it right..." he trailed, laughing sideways toward the poster that once again hid the hole in the wall.

"You shot an Aura sphere through our wall?"

"By accident!"

"Sure it was." Flipping a page casually, Ren noted each word after the next, actually very interested on this tiny piece of info he found. "Aura's not affected by gravity? Are you sure?"

"As far as I can tell." Jaune yawned, ruffling up his bed hair. "If I aim for a target, it always hits dead center from where I'm looking. No air or gravity resistance that Ruby warned me of. I don't really get it myself."

"Interesting..." he hummed, resting his hand under his chin in deep thought.

Jaune wondered what his fellow male could possibly be thinking _now_. It's kind of hard to take him serious with those pink sunglasses of his. Maybe in a different light he could? No. It's just not possible.

Shutting the notebook, Ren handed Jaune back his research notes, letting his idea drift away for now. His idea seemed sound in theory, but the execution was still missing. Not to mention the implications and obstacles his leader would have to overcome could be overwhelming. And with the tournament to worry about? No. Best to keep his idea locked away until he could work around the bugs.

Besides, Jaune's Shooting Star was already deadly. Did Ren really _need_ to give Jaune the idea of a possible sniper rifle? And even possibly, maybe one-up Ruby's gun design? No! Better not to think about it until he could figure out how to get over the major fact that Jaune's opponent could spot Shooting Star coming before it ever hit them, or how Jaune could even pull off firing or aiming Shooting Star that far off away. Hitting stationary targets was one thing, moving ones were entirely different.

"Something on your mind, Ren?" Jaune poked, waving his hand in front of his face.

"Hmm? Oh? No, Jaune." Ren yawned, losing all his rare enthusiasm faster than Weiss could lose a smile. "Just thinking of another possible technique to add to your Aura arsenal."

His leader's eyes gleamed, rivaling Nora's. "Really?! What is it?!"

Lightly amused, Ren still couldn't believe behind that wide smile and innocent face hid a powerful Aura user, one the likes Remnant had never seen. To think, he once thought Jaune was the weakest in their team when it came to fighting skills and overall power.

Never again! Lie Ren didn't make the same mistake twice.

"It's a surprise."

"Aw! Don't keep me hanging!" Jaune begged, shaking Ren by the shoulder in a very Nora way. Maybe she'd been an unknown influence on him? Or maybe Jaune acted like this when it came to anything Aura-based. Personally, Ren hoped it's the Aura talking. "Hey! Say something!"

"Sorry, Fearless Leader." Now it was Ren's turn to not sound sorry, hiding behind a smug smile.

"What?!" he cried, grasping his Aura notebook tightly between his fingers. "That's not fair! You would tell Nora if she asked!"

"But..." Ren pressed, fixing his shades. "You're not Nora now, are you?"

Beaten and unable to argue, Jaune pouted, acting very childlike. Damn it, Nora. Even when she wasn't here she still found a way to mess with her Fearless Leader. Monty must hate him. That's it! Only reasonable explanation! Logic, move aside. Irrational and paranoia, welcome!

Looking around for the bane of his existence, Jaune raised a brow at the missing bomber and his cereal partner. Only now it hit him that the room proved to be far too quiet. Probably should've noticed when Ren, of all people, spoke at higher volumes than the present people included. And now that he knew half of his team was missing, Jaune felt obligated to focus on damage control.

"Speaking of Nora?" Jaune slowly checked under his team's beds, popping his head over after checking Ren's. "Where's Nora and Pyrrha?"

Motioning Jaune toward the direction of Vale, Ren nonchalantly answered. "They left early to Vale for breakfast. Nora was having a pancake and syrup withdrawal and demanded pancakes immediately."

"Okay." Made sense with the flour strike and all. But some things didn't exactly add up. Like Pyrrha and Nora beating him up. "How come they didn't wake me to see if I wanted some breakfast? I could go for some pancakes instead of another helping of cold cereal."

Ren shrugged. "I was going to wake you, but Pyrrha said you needing a lot of sleep. Something about having a terrible day yesterday." Jaune nodded, remembering the nightmare he experienced yesterday. "And Nora agreed, mumbling something about stingy leaders and their cake?"

"I did her a favor!" Jaune suddenly yelled, recalling Blake's fish cake. Last time he did Nora a favor. "You don't know the horror I went through yesterday."

Ren looked off to the side where the closet currently stashed a giant banner with Jaune's first name written in bold letters, while his last name had a giant black smudge over it. He even found small remains of some fishy substance in their bathroom trashcan. After that, he lacked the courage to continue exploring the sanctuary of their own dorm room.

His leader did have a point. "I don't and I don't want to know."

Hmph! "Fine then, let's go see what's for breakfast." Jaune waved toward the door, hiding one hand in his pocket while the other tiredly scratched the side of his face. "At least tomorrow's the weekend. What a week this has been."

Ren couldn't argue. Truly this week had been truly hectic for his leader. Tournament announcements, being chosen for said tournament, having his secret discovered before he could tell them, that fight with Pyrrha, Ozpin's talk, and even yesterday. What a week. Only two more away before the semester's down and they could head to Emerald Forest for some team training. Now that he thought that out loud, it sounded much more like a punishment rather than a vacation.

And if Ren's being honest with himself—he rarely was—there's a slight twitch in his step, wondering what their experience in Emerald Forest would be like. Probably _not_ boring considering Nora and Jaune would be around. Who knew? He might just come out unscathed.

Following Jaune, Ren watched him tuck his Aura notebook into his school shirt. The action made Ren remember how carelessly Jaune had simply left it sticking out from underneath his pillow that morning and how easily Ren snatched the notebook. Measurements needed to be taken to keep that notebook hidden from prying eyes.

"By the way, Jaune." Ren dawdled, slowly taking off his pink shades that he felt essential to carry now, placing them securely in his sleeve. "It's not a good idea to just be leaving your notebook lying around for anyone to take."

"Same goes for your nasty health bars."

...

Subjugated to another bland breakfast, both Ren and Jaune ate their cereal in a slow manner. They would admit that they're a bit jealous they didn't leave to join their partners for breakfast at Vale, but Jaune had been far too gone in his dreams and Ren hadn't felt like getting out of his bed during the time. Mistakes on their part, surely. And now it was too late to fix them. Classes started not for another hour.

And a trip to Vale for breakfast was no longer an option on the table.

Forcing down another bite of this terrible pumpkin shaped cereal; both the males were greeted with the tray slams of Blake and Weiss. Blake didn't show any outward contempt for her meal, silently choosing to sit next to Jaune on the table, although a little close for his comfort. Weiss, on the other hand, showed absolute displeasure at the monstrosity that was her breakfast, choosing to sit beside the stoic Ren.

Weiss huffed, dipping her spoon into the cereal. "This is unacceptable. I cannot go on eating this sorry excuse for a meal. Especially for breakfast! This strike needs to end. How could someone actually enjoy eating this?"

No one noticed Blake sneakily only drinking the milk from her bowl, expertly maneuvering around the pumpkin shaped flakes away from spoon. Delicious milk! It could use some fish. But delicious nonetheless!

"I know what you mean." Jaune sighed, taking a spoonful of the terrible cereal. "But there's nothing we can do about it."

Hmph, she glowered, forcing herself to eat the food. Disgusting or not, breakfast was the most important meal of the day, even for a Schnee. Best not to let herself starve until lunch. Besides, she wasn't exactly looking forward to that as well. Darn this pointless strike! If only they could find the individuals responsible for this flour strike, then she'd show them the end of Myrtenaster.

Ren allowed his eyes roam the table and the Mess Hall before tapping Weiss on the shoulder. "Hey? Where's Yang and Ruby?"

"Over there..." she pointed with her spoon across the Mess Hall where Ruby and Yang sat on a lone table. "They're being idiots."

Being idiots was a clear understatement. Ruby was looking over a backwards newspaper with a giant hole ripped out the front for Yang to peek through, glaring daggers at Ren and Jaune. And every time either one dipped their spoon into their cereal for a quick gulp, a slight shiver would pass through them and reflect on the newspaper, obviously not enjoying the meal either.

Giving up on his breakfast, Jaune dropped his spoon. "And why are they sitting over there?"

Sensing the chance to get some brownie points with Jaune Black Smudge, Blake answered before Weiss. "Something about planning your ambush. You might want to watch your back today. Who knows when they're planning to act."

He groaned, finding the strange urge to dunk his head in the bowl. "Oh... joy."

...

Picking at her plate with a small frown, Pyrrha stabbed her fork into her hash browns with a small bit of guilt. She's still reeling a bit over the fight Jaune and her had, but her real issue was the future Vytal Tournament, and no amount of perfectly crisp potatoes could cure her depression.

"Are you _still_ worrying over Jaune, you worrywart?"

The champion blinked, sharing a carefree glance with Nora. The wildcard of Team JNPR happily munched on a stack of lumberjacks that's drenched in a mountain of syrup and blueberries. If Nora had any problems weighing heavily over her head, then the girl's really good at hiding it. And she awaited Pyrrha's predictable response with half a pancake dangling from her stuffed mouth.

Pyrrha smiled tiredly. "How obvious am I?"

Nora grinned a syrupy smile, poking the insecure girl with her fork. "You're like a lighthouse!" Pyrrha frowned. "Oh! Stop worrying already! I already said we're going to win the Vytal Tournament and save Jaune's butt! So stop beating yourself up and eat!"

If only if it was that easy.

Taking Nora's advice, she plopped some of the hash brown into her mouth, enjoying the taste immensely. After _only_ one day of eating bland food, courtesy to their flour mishap, it tasted like food blessed by Monty Oum himself. Kind of made it hard to not smile and appreciate the chefs at this quaint restaurant. And Nora quickly capitalized and seized the moment for all it's worth, sliding up to Pyrrha with a shoulder bump.

"That's more like it! Stop being mopey Pyrrha! Our Fearless Leader needs scary Pyrrha! No more mopey! Got it?" Pyrrha had to happily sigh. When Nora put it like that, what choice did she have? "Good! Now let's finish this food Jaune-Jaune got us!"

Pyrrha paused into her second bite, very confused. "Nora? What's that supposed to mean?" Nora remained silent, but she did pull out a wallet from her combat skirt pocket. "Is that..."

"I borrowed Jaune-Jaune's wallet..." she said easily, feigning guilt. "I'm sure he won't mind!"

Pyrrha ever so slightly narrowed her eyes. "Don't you mean stole?"

"Borrowed, Pyrrha! I borrowed his wallet!"

This time the champion poked Nora with the end of her potato-scented fork. "Without him knowing?"

Nora crossed her arms, ignoring Pyrrha's judgmental glare. "Yea, okay, if you say it like _that_ , then of course it sounds bad! Stop being so serious and relax a bit. You'll live longer."

Knowing Nora's not one to budge, and that the damage was already done, plus who didn't like a free meal, Pyrrha smiled into her sip of mocha. Nora squirmed underneath the sudden, sly smile, wondering what the champion possibly knew or could do in the span of breakfast. And the champion had a few ideas, all revolving around a certain word.

Stop being so serious? How could she resist? "But I thought you liked serious?" Pyrrha giggled, liking the way Nora's cheeks flared. "Remember when Ren was acting so serious? Because I do. It was really something, wasn't it? I've never seen him act like that." Nora sweated under Pyrrha's smug grin. "And what about when Ren was using your weapon—!"

"Ha-ha!" Nora forcibly laughed, scarfing down her breakfast in haste. "We better hurry up and finish our breakfast!"

Lacing her fingers over the rim of her beverage, Pyrrha toned down her smile. "I guess you're right. We don't want to be late to Professor Port's lecture."

Eating her pancakes in silence, Nora tried to ignore Pyrrha's air of smugness, not used to the champion having such a Yang-side. Pyrrha probably felt more relaxed around her, which didn't help Nora as much as she thought. Even worse, if Nora thought about telling Team RWBY about Pyrrha's teasing, smug smile, she knew no one would believe her.

"We better hurry, Nora. We don't want to miss the next Bullhead back to Beacon. We'll be late to class." Pyrrha at least felt better about the whole Vytal Tournament thing.

Thank you, Nora!

...

Drumming his fingers along his desk as Professor Port continued nonstop on more tales of his amazing youth, Jaune wondered where Pyrrha and Nora were. Pyrrha's never one to be late and Nora couldn't be that big of a distraction. Ren, however, seemed content on note-taking, not bothered by their partner's disappearance at all. With Pyrrha watching Nora, Jaune guessed the Lie had nothing to worry about.

Bored, he let his eyes travel across the room, eventually landing on Ruby below him. He saw her note-taking, only upon closer inspection revealed notes not for Professor Port's lesson, but pictures and notes for weapons. In the dead center of her paper; she's drawing schematics for Crescent Rose. There's even a crudely drawn picture of Ren in the corner with a scythe pointed at his chest. It made him chuckle when he noticed the vicious angry faces spewed all around his image.

He's going to have to warn Ren later.

Checking next on Weiss, he's surprised to find her _not_ taking any notes on Professor Port's lessons, oddly invested in her own thing. Closer inspection revealed her working on random Dust formulas and notes in her notebook, writings in a professional and elegant manner. There were sketches of that blue Dust with a picture of ice spewing across to the second page. There's even a little snowman within that ice, wearing a hoodie and goofy smile. It even had a snow angel hovering above the snowman. It almost looked cute.

Pushing that strange picture aside, Jaune looked around the room some more and spotted Yang. And of course! She's plainly sleeping behind her standing book camouflage set up. Don't even get him started on Blake's patented disguise book cover for her Ninjas of Love series. Did no one pay attention in this class? And where were Nora and Pyrrha at?

 _Slam_!

"Sorry we're late!" Nora suddenly yelled, slamming the door open with a large amount of unneeded force. And yup! There were dent marks on the wall now. "We missed the airship back to Beacon!"

Nora then skipped right in, unfazed from the all the eyes on her. Pyrrha followed right behind the bomber, embarrassed from the swift attention brought down upon her. For such a confident fighter and four time tournament winner, she sure didn't like being put on the spotlight. But Nora Valkyrie knew better. Embarrassed her butt!

Professor Port's mustache grinned at one of his favorite students. "It is quite alright, Miss Valkyrie! Please take your seat. And you too Miss Nikos. We were just talking about the time I single-handedly took down an Omega—!"

And Jaune's bored again.

...

Taking only three steps into Dust class, Jaune suddenly found himself being pulled away by the red blur of Team RWBY. Before he could so much as ask _what_ , she plopped him down into his new seat. Without uttering a word, Ruby zoomed over to pick up today's assignment, being hush-hush about the whole thing. And when she returned with the materials needed and assignment presented, she smiled with a purpose. And this all happened within the span of five seconds. Jaune barely had time to blink between it all.

Well now? This was new.

No, no, not the part of being pulled away from his actual partner before Dust class even started. Jaune Arc had gotten used to that. It's _who_ had pulled him away this time that confused him. Leave it to Ruby to break the status quo in under a minute, and just when he had gotten used to Weiss's short-temper and demanding workload.

Working with the hand Fate had dealt him, the Arc sighed and settled into his chair. Best to play his hand and see where the chips fell. But Ruby played dumb. And by that, he meant she acted normal. Which would've been fine if this had been a normal situation, but it wasn't. So either she really felt like partner swapping—highly unlikely—or she had some ulterior motive that included him? Jaune's banking on the latter.

Playing her game, he tackled the assignment with suspicious intent, seeing right past that cavity-inducing smile of hers.

However, only ten minutes into the assignment and Jaune's preoccupied wondering how anyone allowed Ruby near any containers of highly volatile Dust. He stopped counting the number of times she fumbled a vial or accidentally knocked one over with her elbow. It went from entertaining to embarrassing quite quickly. They still haven't even tackled the first problem of their worksheet. Suffice to say, he found it a little demoralizing.

He eventually couldn't hold his tongue back anymore.

"You know, for a weapons expert..." Jaune trailed, watching Ruby hastily catch a vial of Lightning Dust before it fell on their lab table. "You're pretty clumsy."

"Hey! I am not clumsy!" she huffed, shaking the vial in front of his nose before accidentally letting it slip between her fingers and hitting Jaune squarely on the forehead. He managed to catch it before it hit the ground, fighting through the small pain.

Placing the vial down and wondering how Weiss survived Dust class as Ruby's partner, he grinned angrily at Ruby. "What was that?"

And Ruby laughed awkwardly, pressing her fingers together. "Hehe, sorry."

Fighting the unbelievable urge to pat her on the head, Jaune rubbed his forehead, peaking through his fingers at the adorable, distraught girl. Just when he sort of settled down into his odd Dust class routine, Ruby very awkwardly threw a wretch at it. And she still hadn't yet revealed why!

She had talked along the lines of partner switching again for fun and becoming better friends and so forth. Wanting to grow closer with all her friends and all that good stuff. All lies! Lies Jaune Arc saw right through like a sheet of tracing paper. It helped that Ruby ever so awkwardly refused to make eye contact unless if it was absolutely necessary.

"C'mon..." he sighed, knowing Ruby was terrible at keeping secrets and would spill on her own time. "Let's get started before you drop anymore vials."

Grabbing the paper assignment, Jaune was pleasantly surprised that he understood the general gist of it. Turned out those Dust classes with Weiss were really starting to pay off. Just another step closer to finding a way to infuse Aura into those white Dust crystals!

Grabbing two separate vials of Dust, Jaune casually twisted and turned them in his hands, wondering how Aura released the energy that was stored inside these tiny fragments of Dust. So very interesting.

Lost in another Aura-based thought, Jaune's pulled away from Ruby light bumping into his shoulder with her own. "So? You know, out of curiosity—does Ren have any fears?" she poked, whistling a terrible, terrible way.

Subtly, this was Ruby Rose. You two have never met.

"Yea." Jaune joked, playing along at now knowing the reason why Ruby chose him as her Dust partner.

Ruby seemed edge closer in her seat, widening her eyes in anticipation with her hands scrunched up together. "And?"

"And I'm not telling you."

"What?!" she gawked, feeling an imaginary knife stab her in the back. She then grabbed Jaune by the shoulder, shaking him dramatically. "Why not?!"

He pretended to think on that. "Um, because I'm his leader and _friend_."

"But we're friends!" she pouted, shaking one arm in a never ending loop. "I was your _first_ friend here at Beacon! Not Ren! Me! That's gotta count for something!"

"And it does." Jaune smiled, poking the cookie lover on the nose. "But as their leader, I cannot give out any personal information about my team members." That and it might have something to do that he didn't actually _know_ what Ren's fears were. Jaune's not even sure if Ren had any fears.

Ruby pouted even more, kicking some imaginary dust from the floor, and stubbornly rubbed the spot on her nose that Jaune poked her. Life's not fair! All she wanted to do was destroy Lie Ren in every possible way imaginable! And maybe poke _him_ on _his_ forehead! Was that so much to ask for?

Taking her silence as her sign of giving up, Jaune worked on the assignment, placing the vials into a special tray before Ruby once again bumped him in the shoulder, causing him to spill some Fire Dust on his hand, burning the skin. His Aura quickly put a stop to the burning and shielded the pain. Still, he had to ask, how did Weiss ever survive Ruby as a Dust partner?

Ignoring the small clouds of smoke seeping from Jaune's hand, Ruby nudged him once more. "So... did you ever make that gun?"

Surprised at her question, Jaune fixed his other hand with a lost stare, instinctively flexing his fingers to the gun form of Shooting Star. "Uh... still working on it. It's almost done. I'll have it finished on time for the Vytal Festival."

Her eyes lit up like shooting stars. "Can I see it?"

"Nope! You'll just have to wait for the tournament!"

"You're so mean!"

Later, as some form of cosmic payback, Ruby sneezed on the Fire Dust vial in his hand, covering him in a layer of ash, soot, and burns marks.

...

Lunch practically started out the same with Blake tailing him with her books tucked underneath her arms.

Couldn't say he was surprised.

However, what did surprise him was Yang popping out of her team's room before Jaune could even so much as touch his door, and grabbed Blake by the arm, pulling her quickly inside. She glared at Jaune for a moment, gesturing again with her fingers a simple _I'm watching you_ look before shutting her door. A muffled cry and bark reached him moments later and Blake stomped out angry with a tear and bit of drool on one of her books. She slid up to the Arc, waiting for him to open his team's room.

Yang popped out a moment later, daring Jaune to let Blake in his room and see what happened. And he's sorely tempted not to. But then Blake's looking at him with these imploring eyes and a hesitant smile that melted his resolve away, and he's only human, damn it! It's not his fault they're both dog haters. Someone throw him a bone—eh?

Never mind.

Maybe on some weird level, he was kind of, sort of, perhaps stealing Yang's partner away. But it's not like he wanted to! Intentional it was not. Want to or not, Yang didn't seem to believe him. Especially when her eyes turned into such a lovely shade of red. But the effect's sort of dampened with the way she hugged the corgi closely to her chest, acting very B-level villain movie-like with her fingers ranking over Zwei's fluffy coat.

...

The rest of the day practically blurred together until his team finally finished their last class for the day, choosing to lounge in their room for the moment. Nothing else eventful happened—much to Jaune's eternal relief—thankful for the week finally coming to a close. Only two more weeks until their two week break and their training retreat. He couldn't wish for anything more!

Lazing on Ren's unusual comfortable bed, _why_ , Jaune had his feet kicked up the wall with Nora mimicking his movements, too lazy to change from his school uniform and actually falling almost falling asleep in that position. Pyrrha's polishing Crocea Mors, studying he guessed the odd metal that his ancestor's blade was made out of. And Ren's eating his disgusting health bars in actual content, leaning casually on the wall, and reading his Aura notebook some more.

In all, it's the perfect setup for some drama to begin. And Team JNPR's all about the drama.

Reading through the notes of Jaune's Aura notebook and flipping through pages of notes he taken, something very odd caught Ren's eye. "Hey, Jaune?" he called out, pointing at a scribbled out section. "What's this you've scribbled out right here?"

Fighting the decision to move, Jaune finally gave in and sat right up before standing right up, somewhat grabbing his team's attention. He moved over to Ren and spotted the scribbled out section in his notebook with the label _Nora-level insanity_. There's a tiny picture of a Grimm to help remind him why he did that.

"Oh?" he recalled or thought he recalled, shrugging at the blacken stain. "It's nothing, really. Just something crazy I think happened?"

"And that would be?"

Laughing at the awkward memory, he created a Supernova, fully grabbing his team's attention before willing away the Aura sphere. "I think I saw or used some _black_ Aura before when I was fighting some Grimm. I tried to make more, but couldn't ever do it. So I figured it was just my mind playing tricks on me."

"Black Aura?" Pyrrha echoed, placing Crocea Mors down and thinking hard on the subject. "I don't think I've ever heard of someone with black Aura before."

"Yea..." he agreed. "Crazy, right? I've seen everyone's Aura in combat class and no one's even come close to having black Aura. It didn't even feel like Aura, really. It felt so weird and... bad."

"Bad?" Ren repeated.

"Yea, bad." Jaune retained, shivering at the feeling of hopelessness and misery he felt when it had happened. "Yea it felt—I don't know! Bad! Wrong! Cold!" he waved off the feeling. "But I'm not even sure that happened. It was too quick to remember. Maybe I just imagined it all? I was fighting a Grimm at the time."

Ren moved forward, closing the notebook. "But you remember _feeling_ it?" he countered, not so quick to judge. It sounded crazy so it had to be real. Jaune's the empathy of crazy. "How else did it feel like? Can you remember it?"

Remember it? How could he forget. It was a feeling he didn't think he could ever forget. It felt like he had been pushed into a deep, dark abyss without any light or warmth to keep him company. Anything and everything that Aura was, that power wasn't. And that abyss had kept his Aura at bay for one of the longest moments of his life. So could he remember it?

The better question was whether he wanted to or not.

Running his fingers through his hair, Jaune felt a low pull in his soul, bringing back these intense emotions he thought he finally buried away. The lying and despair he felt when he started deceiving his team all came back full force, and so did that dark Aura tugging his heartstrings. A weight pressed itself against his chest, a force that he couldn't fight against. No matter how much he wanted to.

"It felt?" he stopped, remembering the fight with the Death Stalker and the moment he had been losing. "It felt like everything my Aura ever gave me... all the power and security... got taken away. I was cold, and I felt lonely, but when it was all over... my Aura control felt stronger! I felt stronger. I just didn't know what happened. I couldn't explain it. And eventually I ignored it."

No one said anything for a minute until Nora sat right up, leaning impossibly far off the bed without actually falling over the side, eyes wider than he'd ever seen. It's also the biggest smile he'd ever seen on her face.

"And you never tried to recreate the black Aura?" she asked hopefully.

Jaune created another Supernova. "I did try right after! Believe me, I tried. But my Aura only came out white. So that's why I probably only imagined it."

Ren carefully noted Jaune's words for a moment, pondering over the Aura sphere in his leader's hands. "But you did say that it didn't actually feel like Aura... maybe it wasn't Aura. What else do you remember?"

Remembering more bits of the fight, Jaune smiled whimsically. "I was losing. Supernova wasn't strong enough to break through the Death Stalker's bone-plated armor—!"

"You were fighting a Death Stalker— _by yourself_?!" Pyrrha fumed, edging closer to Jaune. He grinned weakly at her, knowing that there was going to be hell to pay later. Her eyes then grew impossibly large, placing a finger on his jaw. " _That's_ how you got hurt!"

Realizing Pyrrha finally pieced together his blood stains from earlier this week, Jaune pretended she's not trying to glare a hole through his skull, and redirected his attention back at Ren and Nora.

"So, yea. I was losing and I was starting to lose control over Supernova." Jaune paused, touching his chest and felt the negative emotions coming back to surface. "I remember feeling so weak and useless. All my training felt worthless." Creating another Supernova, Jaune floated the Aura sphere carefully in his palm. "I just felt so tired of lying and not belonging here at Beacon."

"But you do belong here at Beacon." Nora fussed, beating logic with simple reason.

And for a moment, Jaune felt grateful for Nora's trust in him, forgiving her instantly for the all harm she caused both physical and emotional to him. But that small sliver of doubt washed over him once more, forcing him to sit down on his bed, and look sadly down at the Aura sphere in his hand.

"And what if I _don't_?"

 **Lub dub!**

Feeling again that same tug in the depth of his soul, the very same cold presence Jaune remembered greedily washed over him, drowning him in a sea of undeniable sadness, and he felt it tear his Aura away in a ripping gesture that resembled something like a gravitational force pulling against his Aura. His and his team's eyes widen in shock from the Supernova in his hand suddenly turning deathly pitch-black, and _collapsing_ into the palm of his hand with an overshadowing affect that spread across his entire palm in a blanket of darkness.

Despair quickly fell on Jaune and he lost complete control, finding everything wrong. So very wrong. Whatever this black _power_ was, it did not like being in his body. For some reason, he could see through Space that his white Aura was actively trying to push out the black from overcoming anymore of his arm, eventually killing the power and wiping away the darkness away from his palm. And as soon as the dark power died, so did the cold feeling seeping into his body. The hopelessness vanished as well, only leaving behind trace amounts of mixed feelings, but most importantly, leaving behind unrivaled fear.

That didn't feel like Aura, not exactly.

"Jaune?" Pyrrha finally breathed, grabbing her leader by the shoulder. "Was that?"

"I don't believe it?" Flexing his fingers, Jaune's hand couldn't stop shaking from both fear and excitement. "So it wasn't a dream? It really did happen? I'm not crazy."

Trying again to resummon the dark power, Jaune this time felt a slither lying somewhere deep within the confines of his soul, locked away in his very core. It rested there, underneath all the light. He tried to forcefully pull the strange power forward, but his Aura quickly put a stop to that, automatically pressing the power back in a valiant effort of will and strength.

He tried multiple times, but the results remained the same.

"So that was the black Aura?" Ren mussed, but Jaune quickly shook his head.

"That... wasn't Aura." Jaune glared, remembering the feeling of power. Power that felt totally different compared to Aura. "It didn't—doesn't feel like Aura. Not exactly. This time I can sense it! I know it's there now. And I know where to look, but calling that power Aura would be a lie."

"Why don't you try calling that power again?"

Jaune grimaced. "I'm afraid to see what will happen. My Aura wasn't _friendly_ to it. Maybe if I stop my Aura from attacking it, I could probably summon the power, but..."

"You don't know what will happen." Pyrrha finished, concerned for her leader's grim yet determined look. She squeezed his shoulder softly. "Jaune, you don't have to try—?"

Their Fearless Leader created another Supernova in his hand and this time tried to pull the strange dark power forward, constantly willing his Aura not to attack and stop the new power. The Supernova slowly turned deadly black again, collapsing into his hand once more, and again his Aura fought against his control. Jaune could see through Space his white Aura already attacking the strange power against his will, eventually killing away the power in a valiant act. He tried again, but this time the Aura's more adamant at not obeying Jaune's control, stopping the power from even reaching Supernova.

Jaune didn't know why, but he felt that same cold, lonely despair wash all over him, coating his soul a layer of doubt each and every time the black energy reached him. Sadness that only washed away after the power had been wiped out completely by warm and soothing Aura.

All the warmth that Aura gave simply did not exist within the darkness.

Feeling his Aura staring to lessen from the constant usage, Jaune sat down, never once realizing that was the first time he'd ever actively seen his own Aura through Space. Never once having any reconciliation of seeing his own Aura before. Never noticing how close his Aura stuck to his skin compared to everyone else's. Seeing a glow from his Aura and the actual thing were two different experiences. Because it was like looking at one's own soul.

He just sat there, thinking about how his Aura fought against that darkness. Like a disease.

"Jaune?" Nora poked, no longer grinning. "Are you okay?"

Looking up, all three of his friends were close by him, shouldering all looks of concern.

"Yea..." he said eventually, shaking his head. He searched for the power and found it again in the same spot as before, right above his chest. "Yea, I'm good. Just a little confused, right now. I'm just wondering. Why did it come now? And not before? Why now?"

Lost, Jaune frowned a bit from the lingering emotions, and Ren instantly took note of his leader's unusual depressed mood. Normally, Jaune would never ever let anything get him down. Or at least he wouldn't outwardly show it. This unknown power really had a negative effect on him. Or maybe being unable to control this power hit him harder than any of them thought? It couldn't be easy knowing another form of Aura existed that he lacked the control to command.

Closing his eyes and thinking over the facts, Ren's mind pictured a monster for a split-second when he thought over the negative emotions, cold sensation, and the dark coloring the energy seemingly had.

Looking back at Jaune's Aura notebook, a small theory emerged. "Aura is the manifestation of power that allows us to fight the Grimm. Its warmth and protective, a beacon for our very souls, maybe thinking negatively about yourself had manifested the Aura to become something dark and cold?" Jaune looked ready to argue, but Ren lifted a finger. "Both times you felt sadness... and you're saying that power made you feel cold and alone... maybe that power responds to negative emotions?"

He didn't seem convinced. "What about other Huntsmen? I'm pretty sure I haven't been the only depressed Huntsmen-in-Training before."

"Other Huntsmen didn't have the power to control their Aura to such extents." Pyrrha pushed, liking Ren's theory. "They're not as strongly connected to their Aura as you are."

"And besides." Ren added, pointing at Jaune's Aura notebook. "Who knows what there's left to discover about Aura."

Jaune concentrated and glowed in a light shade of snow. "That doesn't explain why I can't use it or why my Aura seems to attack that power."

Ren shrugged, out of ideas. "Maybe you can't have Aura while you're using it? If your Aura is stopping if from surfacing, maybe you need to run out of Aura in order to use the power?" he guessed, throwing out some random ideas.

"Maybe you can put the Aura where that strange power comes from and switch them out!" Nora threw in.

Jaune was about to scoff at _that_ insane idea, but stopped himself before he could. That power did exist locked somewhere in his soul. Maybe he _could_ switch them out? Crazy as it sounded. And it sounded completely insane. Which was why it might be worth a try.

Because sanity and him have long since went their separate ways.

Feeling for the frightening power, Jaune found it tucked deep within his soul, locked away. He slowly attempted to pull it forth and his Aura's already trying to prevent the power from surfacing. Heeding Nora's crazy idea, Jaune tried to switch the Aura and power, in a way, locking away his Aura. He didn't fight his Aura, he attempted to maneuver it around the dark substances.

What madness. Locking away his Aura. The idea truly scared him to the deepest core of his soul.

But it worked.

After what felt like hours and through some intense Aura control, the power and Aura switched places, and that same creepy dark glow overshadowed him, filling him immediately with an unmatched coldness and bleak feeling. A power similar to Aura, but scarcely different overcame Jaune. The power quickly scared him and he tried to control it, fighting back the unwelcoming emotions. But like being stranded in the middle of an ocean, he felt himself drowning immediately.

Falling to his knees, his team was quickly around Jaune, watching their leader fall to this dark power. They swiftly tried to grab him, but Jaune stopped them by holding his hand out shrouded in a cloak of shadow. He looked up, squarely determined to fight and control the cold power. His glare alone made the temperature in the room fall.

"I want to learn how to control it." Jaune stood up, determined. Unable to control it anymore, his Aura burst forward and pushed back, recapturing him again. "I never know when I'll need the extra power. And who knows, maybe I could use it during the Vytal Tournament?" he joked, hoping to push back the negative emotions.

Truth was, the idea of having some unknown dark power lurking somewhere in his soul irked him to no end. Fear gripped his heart, and Jaune would rather have that power under his control than not. And it didn't hurt to know that he's not anywhere near _Nora-level insanity_. Small victories.

"And we'll be here to help you!" Nora grinned, throwing her arm over his shoulder.

Jaune smiled weakly at that, seeing the sun begin to set. What a long week this had been.

"Sure, why not!" Laughed the Arc, sitting back on his bed with Pyrrha instantly on his side. "It'll be just like old times with me practicing in our room during dinner, except this time you'll know what I'm doing."

"What about lunch?" Pyrrha asked.

He scratched the side of his cheek, laughing awkwardly. "No can do. That's Blake's reading time. It's impossible to sneak away from her. Believe me, I've lost count how many times she's popped out from the shadows."

"Well..." Nora swayed, undeterred. "That's what the nights for! You can practice and we'll watch you and make sure you don't hurt yourself!" Jaune's more afraid that they'd be doing the hurting. "Speaking of dinner!" she grinned wide, grabbing her leader by the arm, and pushing back all the awkwardness. "You still owe us pancakes for when Ren beat Ruby! You promised! You promised! And I'm hungry!"

Jaune couldn't believe she actually remembered that. "You _still_ remember that?"

"Yup!"

"Trust me." Ren smirked, already getting ready to leave for Vale. "Nora never forgets about anything having to do with pancakes. And you did promise her."

Jaune turned to Pyrrha for support and her stomach growled in response, making the cereal girl fidget a little. "I am getting tired eating the bland food that Beacon has been serving us for a while. Anything sounds good right now, especially pancakes."

"But you and Nora left to get pancakes this morning!"

"And we want more!" Nora yelled, leaving no room for argument. "You can never have too many pancakes! Right, Ren!"

Powerless to Nora's childlike smile, Ren fell easily and nodded alongside Nora, getting a quick hug from the mad fighter. Truth be told, anything really did sound better than whatever Beacon was currently serving after Nora, Pyrrha, and his flour fiasco. Of course their Fearless Leader didn't need to know that.

Guilt be damned.

Accepting his defeat, Jaune sighed before looking for his wallet. He only moved two steps before Nora guiltily pressed it forward toward his face, smile far too innocent. He grumbled a little and glared before snatching the wallet, finding some lien missing.

"Did you use my money this morning for your breakfast?"

Nora seemed to not so subtly hide behind Ren, still smiling wistfully at Jaune from over Ren's protective shoulder. "Did I ever tell you that you're greatest leader ever?"

Fighting the urge to reach out and strangle her, and knowing Ren would stop him before he so much as lifted a finger, Jaune slowly regained his cool and simply let it go. Totally not worth it! Well? No! Don't sink to her level. That's what she wanted him to do!

Unbuttoning his school uniform, Jaune sighed and tossed the constricting article of clothing aside and looked for his hoodie. Might as well best be comfortable for dinner. And the idea of going out for dinner did sound absolutely fantastic right about now.

Even if they were having more pancakes.

"So?" Nora hummed absently at the sheer awesomeness of her leader, leaning over _his_ shoulder now. "What are you gonna name it?"

Finding his hoodie behind Nora's bedpost, Jaune blinked. "Name _it_?"

"Yea!" she jumped, arms wide out, and smile grand. "That totally awesome dark power! You said it's not _exactly_ like Aura... so it's new! You discovered it! You should name it! Those are the rules!"

Name it? Remembering the dark emotions and cold feeling, Jaune didn't know. The power frightened him—petrified every part of his being. The simple idea of naming it hadn't crossed his mind. Oum, he just discovered the power.

"... I don't know yet."

Pouting, Nora longed back at Ren, hovering within his personal space. Though to be fair, Jaune doubted Ren had a personal space when it came to Nora.

Time passed by in a blur for the rest of the evening with them causing even more property damage like the last time his team had an outing to Vale. Only this time, they managed to stop Nora before she set the park ablaze after destroying the tress and breakdown the pancake house from after eating way too many overly sugarfied, double-chocolate chip pancakes with extra chocolate and heavy syrup.

When later asked by some random Vale policemen if they knew the perpetrator for these heinous crimes to their poor beloved park, Ren, Pyrrha, and even Jaune shook their heads, hiding Nora from their view.

Lying as a team never made Jaune Arc feel so complete.

A team that lied together stayed together!

...

Practicing the last two weeks at night in their room before the semester's over, Jaune learned a few things about this strange, dark power. First and foremost, it did not make him feel any stronger or faster compared to when he actively used his Aura—did not. No increase strength, speed, or reflexes. If anything, they're pretty much the same thing if not, a bit weaker from his lack of control. The power's more like an extra power source. Always there, just impossible to use.

Kind of like Aura and Crocea Mors.

Secondly, the more he used it, the more those negative emotions blurred together, eventually becoming part of Jaune whenever he sought out the power. Charm and goofiness eventually found their way back to him with a healthy dose of attitude. And none of his team seemed to mind. A confident Jaune was better than a mopey one. But occasionally he acted depressed or more like Weiss. Nora had fun poking at both attitude changes.

And finally, both Aura and that strange power couldn't exist together. One had to be gone. No question. And having to actively suppress one power for the other made it damn near impossible to practice control for long. They both may almost felt the same, but their properties were still vastly different in terms of control.

Forget about creating a gun, bomb, or even _sword_ out of this eerie power if he couldn't even manage to hold onto the power for more than half an hour at best. Practically square one all over again. And no amount of Nora's consistent cheering, Pyrrha's never-ending encouraging, or Ren's laid back understanding could help him.

Somehow, someway, he was still missing something truly important to fully grasp this power. That he knew. Call it instinct. Call whatever! Jaune Arc knew that some driving force was holding him back from completely unleashing this untapped torrent of terrifying power. And he couldn't wait every night to practice his control. Every little discovery helped.

Finishing the last class and test for the semester, Jaune sighed a breath of relief, damn happy that he survived his first semester here at Beacon Academy. Home of the elite. Creator of the strong. And any other nonsense that came with attending this school. Now if only he could win the Vytal Tournament. Then all problems would all be but a simple illusion.

Returning to his room, Jaune's met with Blake edging under Ren's bed, with the tell-tale signs of Nora hiding underneath said bed. She's shivering from what he could see and Blake's calmly trying to get her to come out with words of reassurance. Ren, on the other hand, was rubbing the bridge of his nose from the corner of the room, peeking through his fingers at the antics of his childhood friend.

This should be good.

"What happened?"

Giving up her quest to pull Nora out, Blake's bow twitched at the question, observing Jaune with casual, yet slightly alarmed eyes. It's strange, but not as strange she'd been these past two weeks with her constant nudging and overall space breaking persona.

Ignoring her strange behavior for the time being, Jaune asked again. "What happened?"

Looking down at Ren's bed, she started off with holding a worn out book toward Jaune. "Nora wanted to hear some scary stories and I thought I read her some stories about folklore—lore basically."

Jaune tilted his head. "Folk... lore?"

"Mostly stories about monsters like the Grimm or tales usually having to do with something dark and scary. That's what's popular in folklore."

Getting the answer he asked for, but not the one he wanted, Jaune looked down to where Nora was hiding. "Well, you did a great job. She's hiding under her bed. And not even Ren can seem to get her out."

To prove a point, Ren had moved to kneeling beside his bed, attempting to pull Nora out. "Nora, please come out from underneath the bed."

"No!" she cried, shuffling deeper into a corner. "The monsters are gonna to get me!"

Sigh. "Nora—?"

"Please don't let them get me, Ren!"

"They're not going to get you. I promise."

There's a quiet pause before her head peeked out and she's giving Ren her best pout. "I'm scared. Could you sleep under here with me?"

Jaune already knew Ren's answer before Ren even knew. It then came to life when Ren ran a hand through his long hair, buttons pressed, and grabbed a few pillows, overly large blanket, and crawled beneath his own bed. A small shuffle was made underneath for Ren to crawl under and Jaune didn't need to look down to know Nora's clinging him tightly in a death grip.

Poor guy.

Hearing Ren sadly fix his new bed for the night, Jaune glanced back to Blake, honestly curious. "... So what other type of scary stories does lore talk about?"

Sensing the chance to get on Jaune's good side, she settled to tell him everything. "Sometimes it has to do with the apocalypse. Other times it has to do with monsters. Like I said, it's mostly scary stuff."

"Like what?"

"Well..." she paused, opening her book to a particular story. "There's this one story about a monster that almost drowned all the world in darkness. The story referred the monster as Ragnarok or maybe that what the story refers to the end of the world? Either way, after people brought so much negativity to the world, the monster decided to plunge the world into a sea of darkness by robbing away the light that kept the darkness at bay. Eventually, they tried to repent and learned to embrace the fear."

"They embraced the fear?"

"When they embraced the fear." Blake answered, thinking over the symbolism. "They conquered it. No longer afraid and with nothing for the monster to feed on anymore, it left. Embracing your fears and not allowing them to control you are two different things. It takes courage to open your arms to the darkness."

"They sound the same." Jaune argued. This lore stuff sounded dark and cold. Kind of reminded him of the stranger power he's trying to control. Maybe he's looking at this the wrong way?

Closing the book, she handed it to him. "They're not." _Beep_! _Beep_! Checking her scroll, she smiled a bit. "Well, I must go, Ruby's throwing this mandatory team meeting to plan for next semester's super fun activities." A small whimper sounded off from underneath Ren's bed. "I promise not to read anymore scary stories to Nora."

Still thinking over Blake's words of wisdom, Jaune couldn't help but compare her to Ren in a way. She's smart and mysterious, strong and silent, and in a tiny way, his personal book of vast knowledge. So far she had helped him overcome a few obstacles and helped him solved quite a number of his own personal problems. Part of him didn't know what would've happened if she had never asked to read in his room in the first place.

Jaune's starting to _not_ regret allowing her to steal away his Aura training in exchange for book reading.

"Ruby can be..." he lingered, remembering her impulsive attitude and stubborn adorableness. "Hyper. But she's nowhere near bad as Nora."

"At least you don't have to sleep in the same room as the intruder." Jaune laughed at her nickname for the dog and her obvious displeasure. "I still have to deal with that dog leaving its darn scent all over my bed. Somehow her dog finds a way under _my_ covers, and it bothers me at night."

"Well, if you hate it so much, you could always move into the closet if you wanted..." he joked, not realizing that Blake Belladonna could never tell the difference between a joke from Jaune Black Smudge or serious offer.

"Really?" she asked genuinely, her bow twitching madly to the idea of getting away from the intruder and being surrounded by the sweet scent of orange scented clothes. The moment felt like a dream.

Of course Jaune still didn't notice her serious and eager expression. "Sure! Why not? Next semester you can have the entire closet if you want."

Blake fought the urge to jump. Maybe later! But for now she settled for a very big smile that could melt steel.

Finally! All her hard work paid off. Goodbye, intruder!

 _Beep_! _Beep_!

"Oh!" she actually did jump, checking her scroll again. Now Ruby was demanding her to move her sorry butt. "I better go. Ruby's being impatient. I'll see you around."

"See ya!"

Watching Blake leave, Jaune did a tiny wave and paused when he found that he still had the book Blake gave him in his hand. Team JNPR's leader thought about running back and giving it to her, but he stopped when something of interest caught up back to him.

 _Embracing your fears and not allowing them to control you are two different things._

Looking over his shoulder, Jaune still saw Ren and Nora under Ren's bed with Nora clutching Ren for dear life. Poor Ren couldn't get out of her vice-grip if he tried. And he doubt he would, anyways. Nora did have the ninja wrapped around her finger. Even their clueless leader could see that.

Opening the book, he found the story Blake was talking about, reading over the words the passage contained. The story told of this monster creature with eyes darker than coal and soaked in blood with hair as white as the moon, roaming and terrorizing the world in an age of darkness. Somehow this monster found a way to rob the people of the world of their light and taint them.

She almost burned down the world to pure nothingness if it wasn't for the people finally embracing their fears and stealing the strength she so desperately needed to wipe out humanity. The story ended with her getting away, vowing to finish what she started, even if it took for the memory of her existence to vanish away like dust in the wind. _Remnants_ of her destruction was said to be everywhere around them. A reminder each and every day to humanity's last stand all those years ago and all the lives lost to the darkness.

This story—this _lore_ spoke volumes of fear, darkness, and even hopelessness.

And it reminded him so much of this strange dark power lurking inside him. It, too, filled him with fear, darkness, and hopelessness. But in the story, the humans learned to embrace their fears, not trying to control them. They made the fear as something animalistic. Something to believe in.

Something to _trust_.

Lifting his hand out, Jaune searched for the dark power, finding it hidden in his soul. He began to pull the power, already feeling his Aura starting to fight it, control it. And instead of forcing his Aura to back away through sheer willpower, Jaune tried not to be afraid of this strange power.

"Embrace your fears."

Closing his eyes, Jaune imagined the power not as something to fear, but something to accept. After all, this scary power did save his life once. It couldn't be all bad. Aura was warm and he gladly accepted its help the first time he felt it. So what if this power was cold? Why should it be any different? He should learn to accept this power as well.

Never judge a book by its cover!

 **Lub dub!**

Feeling that same familiar tug, Jaune felt his Aura suddenly escaping to the realm where the power normally resided, easily switching between the two. Darkness descended upon Jaune's soul, but it's no longer trying to suffocate and corrupt him. His Aura wasn't fighting back to gain control. Not anymore. A balance between the negativity and Jaune's soul was established. And within the cold grip of this power, he felt just as alive than he did with Aura.

 _Click_!

Entering the room, Pyrrha came in to find her leader standing in the center of their room, a dark vial of power surrounding his body in a layer of armor, just like his Aura. Except this time, Jaune wasn't visibly struggling to compress the power. In fact, he looked happy, smirking practically.

There's this air of confidence around him and he looked at her, kicking Ren's bed in order to get his entire team's attention. Ren and Nora's heads pop out from underneath Ren's bed a moment later, and Jaune glowed darkly in the room where no one noticed the lighting getting mildly weaker.

"Nora..." he smirked, not feeling any stronger than when he's using his Aura, but definitely feeling a whole new power all together. The power appeared to gravitate. "I think I finally have a name for... _this_."

Throwing the book on his bed, Jaune felt the new power embrace him in a blanket of coldness.

Everything that Aura's not.

And this time he didn't fight back.

"Lore."

* * *

 **Author Notes:** Edited **\- 1/11/2018**


	10. Pebble

**Disclaimer:** I own nothing of RWBY.

* * *

 **Pebble**

 **By: Imyoshi**

He's come so far.

Farther than he ever thought possible—farther than his own parents believed he could go.

Farther... than anyone else.

Holding out his hand, Jaune Arc observed the dark power covering his body in acute fascination. He couldn't fight back his grin even if his very life depended on it. Just the simple thought of a whole new power to control and learn has finally grabbed him in ways only Aura can. Peaked his ever growing interest. Peaked it to new heights. New goals! New everything!

Not even the shroud of coldness surrounding him could dampen his mood.

"Lore?" Nora slowly blinks, unable to contain traces sparks of her excitement. The word just sounded so cold and mysterious. And it even rolled off the tongue so effortlessly like exotic silk.

Popping out from underneath the bed and forgetting about her momentary fear of monsters and everything frightening from Blake's scary tale, Nora and the rest of Jaune's team edge closer towards their Fearless Leader, finally able to see this Lore after two weeks of intense struggles.

Upon gazing, she sees her leader shrouded in a cloak of darkness similar to his Aura. His face is no longer stuck in an intense pain as he struggles to control the power, and for once, Jaune seems completely relaxed. Content really. Like nothing could stop him. As if the world alone needed allies to beat him. And even then that probably wouldn't have been enough to stop him.

A new person—a new _leader_.

"Lore?" Unable to stop the worry bubbling in her chest from the eerie energy surging around Jaune, Pyrrha bites her lip. "Doesn't that sound a bit, dark?" she asks, still unsure how to still feel about Jaune's new power.

On one hand, she's glad he's finally able to control Lore to an extent... but on the other, all the things he's said—he's _felt_! Those thoughts of hers worry the champion. Fear is never good. And now her leader, friend, and partner is practically basking in it. Embracing the sinister power without reserve.

Who wouldn't be worried?

"Well, I like it!" Nora grins without worry before hiding under Ren's bed. "It super cool and mysterious and it rolls off the tongue. I bet the ladies will love it!"

"See?" Jaune added. "Nora liked it."

"Nora likes everything!" Pyrrha countered heatedly.

"Not true!" she argued, popping out again. "I hate waffles and all that nasty stuff Ren eats."

Ren sighs, shuffling back underneath his bed, "It's called a salad, Nora. And it's healthy for you. Maybe if you just tried it again, it'll—?"

"It's nasty and looks awful!"

"It's good for you—!"

Ignoring Ren and Nora's argument, Jaune looks back to Pyrrha in all his Lore coated glory. She blinks a few times at his amusing smirk, still not use to Jaune's influx of emotions whenever he actively tries to control this dark power he calls Lore now. His current attitude is an improvement from the self-pity that came before, that much is true, but she's still not use it.

Not by a long shot.

Feeling his Lore start to relax, Jaune's dark glow eventually settles down and goes away. Now though he could feel the Lore residing where his Aura normally stays, filling every pore of his being. It's a cold and empty feeling, but not in the sense of being bad. Like Aura, the feeling felt natural once he finally got a control over it.

Not total control, mind him. Unlike Aura, Jaune can feel his control over Lore far weaker. He could probably still create a sphere out of Lore if he tried, but that's all assumption based. Monty knows how much training it's going to require to fully grasp this strange, dark power. Parts of him are even still doubting trusting the dark power.

Sitting down on his bed, Jaune laughs, "So? What do you think, Pyrrha?"

Silent, she glared over to a waiting Ren and Nora and then back at an excited Jaune. What did she think? Think about what? Jaune's new found control over his _Lore_? The upcoming Vytal Tournament and all the ramifications that came with it? Nora's refusal to eat anything healthy and Ren's forever quest to say otherwise?

What _did_ she think?

"I think... I think this is going to be an _interesting_ training trip."

...

Sleeping in for most of the day, Team JNPR wakes up in the middle of the afternoon, rested and all for their big training trip into Emerald Forest. The bags have been packed beforehand and Nora hasn't stopped talking about all the fun camping activities she couldn't wait to try for days now. And Pyrrha will admit that she's been looking forward to this as well.

Waking up first between her team, the cereal girl yawned loudly, fixing her bed hair while spotting her Fearless Leader waking up due to her loud yawn. Pyrrha smiled apologetically at her leader. She didn't mean to wake him. Unlocking his new found control over Lore and dealing with finals had really drained him and Jaune was the first to fall asleep the night before.

Next to Jaune, there's a muffle curse from underneath Ren's bed—most likely Ren himself—from probably bumping his head on the wooden padding. And Nora's not too far behind with her loud—!

"Good morning, Ren!"

Sigh, "Morning, Nora."

Pyrrha smiled to herself, wondering how a girl as strong as Nora Valkyrie could be scared of a little ghost tale. Didn't she ride an Ursa Major during their initiation? Perhaps she wasn't scared? Maybe Nora just wanted an excuse to cuddle with Ren? Pyrrha's smile grows a tiny bit bigger at the idea, already feeling her day that much brighter than before.

Rolling out from underneath Ren's bed, Nora bounced upwards, quickly sliding towards her still sleepy leader, "Morning, Jaune!"

"It's too early, Nora."

"But it's almost eleven!"

"Too early."

Fixing her hair, Pyrrha watched Jaune fumble around for his morning clothes, finding them under Nora's bed of course. He pulled out his sweater before heading for the bathroom. Meanwhile, Nora pulled out a tired Ren from under his bed, smiles and all. And for a split-second he glared at his rude awakening, but Nora's sudden fixing of his hair calmed him down.

Pyrrha shakes her head at the scene.

Nora so has Ren wrapped around her finger.

...

"Why do we have to carry the supplies?" Ren complains dryly, walking out of Beacon and towards Emerald Forest with both Jaune and him caring all the camping supplies. "How is this even remotely fair?"

"Because you're the guys!" Nora answers from behind the group, slapping her leader on the back. "You're supposed to be big and strong."

Ren's about to argue—he really is. But then Nora's all up close and personal, grinning from ear to ear with a small sway in her hips as she stood in place. She silently hums, blinking once with absolute innocence that Ren knows better than to believe. He _knows_ he knows better. So why did he sigh and blow away a stray stand of hair away instead of fighting?

"Fine."

Pyrrha can't help but giggle amusingly from her point-of-view, wishing Ren all the luck she can. Poor Ren is so tightly wrapped around Nora's trigger happy finger; she wonders what her stoic teammate actually gets out of this. It can't be from the sheer kindness and selfless preservation of his heart.

He's far too lazy for that nonsense.

Reaching the courtyard, they spot Team RWBY lounging around the giant fountain in the middle of Beacon with Ruby zooming past her teammates back and forth in clear excitement. They all look indifferent to whatever Ruby was telling them, emotions evident on their various faces, but paying attention nonetheless.

Yang looked ecstatic at her baby sister's plan, lounging back towards the fountain. Weiss had a slight huff in her posture, sitting properly on the fountain while Blake completely stayed cleared from the fountain, gazing blankly at her leader. Occasionally, she thought about voicing some of her opinions on the matter, but decided against it each and every time.

"Hey!" Ruby suddenly yelled, spotting them before Nora could yell first. "What are you guys up to?"

Now Nora could yell, "We're going camping in Emerald Forest!"

"What?!" Appearing before them in a flash of rose petals, Ruby peeked at the stuff Jaune was carrying, seeming to deflate a bit every second. "How long will you be gone?"

"About two weeks," Jaune said.

"Two weeks!" she screams, throwing her arms out. "But that's practically the whole break! How come I'm just learning about this?!"

Team JNPR stops to think about that, having flashbacks of the past couple of weeks and all of the shenanigans in between. All their flashbacks consisted of Ruby and Yang trying to sabotage Ren or Jaune one way or another. Like the time Ruby set off her own water bucket over the door trap, or the time Yang bleached parts of her own hair. Each and every time something bad happened usually had to do with messing with Jaune and Ren.

Pyrrha could never figure out how Ren or Jaune came out unscathed from those planned pranks, but Nora would wave it off, playing the card of bad luck or something along those lines, and that as long as Jaune was by Ren, no harm would befall them.

Pushing that aside for the moment, it totally made sense that none of Team RWBY knew of their suppose camping training trip with being too preoccupied on getting the drop of their fellow males. Blake probably knew, but unless directly asked, most likely didn't bother mentioning it. And Weiss wasn't someone to get mixed up in other people's business to begin with.

Still, the answer Ruby got came from Nora, "We thought you knew," she shrugs cheerfully.

"B-But," Ruby choked, pulling out a big binder out of nowhere. "I had plans set up and everything! We were all supposed to go to Vale and have a blast! How could you, Jaune?!" she cried, using his sleeve as a pillar of support to lean on. "How could you rob me of our team bonding fun?"

Sensing Yang's eyes on him, Jaune risked it all on the truth, "It was all Ren's idea to go camping!"

Time freezing, Ren doesn't even get a chance to defend the accusations or glare at his traitorous leader before Ruby's up in his face, attempting to poke him on his forehead. He dodges of course, but that only helps to fuel her already deeply rooted anger.

"I should've known this was _your_ idea," she says in an accusing sort of way, glaring her adorable eyes at him. "First you beat me, then you deny me my rightful rematches, then you beat again, and now you rob me of all my hard work! Must you take everything away from me?"

Knowing the words _reasoning_ and Ruby don't mix well, he shrugs, "Yes."

Resting her hands on her hips, she points at Ren, "Watch! I'm going to train and get stronger and beat you! Just you wait!"

Bored, Ren slothfully poked Ruby in the forehead, amused in the inside while remaining calm at her adorable puffed out cheeks. "You do that."

"I will!"

Tempting Monty, Ren barely smirked for the first time at her, "You should probably work on your speed first. You're still too slow."

Now he pushed her too far.

Stepping back before Ruby could hit him with her tiny fist, Ren sidestepped away from her, avoiding her montage of pathetic strikes. It helped with his unknown semblance currently running rampant in her body when he poked her, throwing off her balance as the sun glared off at the perfect moments in her eyes.

Cheering Ren and Ruby on, Nora grinned at the display, excited to see how Ren would handle the moment. Meanwhile, Pyrrha tried to stop them, eventually successfully grabbing Ruby by the waist, using all her strength to hold back a kicking and screaming Ruby. Jaune, on the other hand, watches this all with a small laugh, glad that wasn't him for once.

"Hey!" Turning around, Jaune comes face-to-face with Weiss and she's frowning at him, very displeased apparently. "How come you didn't tell me you're leaving for the whole break?" Weiss glares.

Jaune just smiled at the rare concern, "What? Are you gonna miss me?"

"Of course not, you dunce!" she glares off wistfully at any direction but his, crossing her arms. "It's just that there are no doctors in Emerald Forest, so there's no one to help you _when_ you get hurt while camping."

"Don't worry about me," he laughs, pulling the bag higher on his shoulder. "I'll be fine. My team will be there to watch my back."

"Fine, whatever!" she pulls out a blue Dust crystal from her pocket, pressing the rock roughly on his chest. "But at least take this."

"What is it?"

Weiss smirks, holding her head up high, "It's that new ice Dust crystal I've been working on. I finished the last touches last night after our final Dust class. I guess you could have it to defend yourself, you did help make it. Don't worry, I have the other one."

Holding up the bright, snow blue crystal, his hand cools greatly from just touching it, "It's very cold."

"The Dust crystal itself is below zero degrees Celsius."

Not really sure how he could use this Dust crystal in the future, Jaune's still touched by the care, taking extra care at tucking the ice gem into his sweater pocket. He smiles warmly at Weiss against the freezing cold sensation he's feeling in his fingers.

"Aww! Thanks, Weiss! I'll keep it safe!" he gives her a thumbs up and she returned the gesture by humphing her head away. Jaune still laughs anyways, grinning like a total fool.

"Jaune?" Nora interrupted from behind, tugging her leader by the shoulder. "I think we should skedaddle before Ruby breaks free of Pyrrha's hold!"

Looking over his shoulder, Nora's right—frighteningly—Ruby's still trying to attack Ren who's attention is settled on his reflection in the fountain. He doesn't even seem to be acknowledging Ruby's attempts at attacking him, very less paying her any attention whatsoever.

Yup! Time to leave.

"Okay, I'll see you later," Jaune waved, pulling Nora and then Ren away, knowing Pyrrha will catch up later when Ruby can no longer find them.

Weiss watches them leave with Yang walking over to her sister and taking her into her hold, preventing Ruby from mad dashing towards a running Team JNPR. Pyrrha thanks her profoundly before running to catch up, waving them goodbye as well.

A moment later, Blake walks up beside Weiss with a knowing and rare smirk playing across her face at Weiss's unusual deep frown.

"How hard is it to tell him that you're worried about his safety?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

...

Trudging along Emerald Forest, the girls of Team JNPR casually talked about feminine things that neither Jaune nor Ren personally felt like engaging anytime soon. Besides, holding the bag full of camping supplies and sleeping bags required all their effort. Hell, both Jaune and Ren were actively using their Aura's to keep them going, silently hating everything life had to offer for the moment.

They were heading towards a destination Ren had pointed out in a map that was relatively free of Grimm activity since little to no Hunters ever wandered that far into the forest. A perfect place to train! No wandering eyes or the sneaky suspicion of someone watching their every move. Only downside... the distance.

Minutes soon turned to hours during the hike, and when they were almost there, Nora spotted something in the far off distance, pointing excitingly towards it.

"Hey! Look over there!"

Following her finger, the rest of Team JNPR spots a lone cabin in the woods hidden within the trees with a wide opened space beside it in clear need of a new coat of paint. Don't even get them started on the chipping wood, beyond filthy windows, and misplaced planks of wood sticking out the side of the cabin.

Don't.

"It seems to be a cabin in the woods," Pyrrha hummed.

"C'mon!" Nora ran towards the cabin. "Let's go check it out! I bet there's some awesome stuff in there!"

Jaune huffed, "What if someone is living in there?"

"I don't think anyone lives in there," Ren commented, trailing behind Nora.

Unable to stop their bubbly teammate, Pyrrha and Jaune followed shortly behind, reaching the broken porch. Both Jaune and Ren immediately dropped their bags, glad for a moment to rest as Nora peeked through the murky window, unable to see past the grime and darkness within.

Determined, she pushed open the window and jumped in before Ren could stop her. A few seconds later, they heard the sounds of a clumsy _oops_ coming from inside as Nora probably crashed into any furniture within the darkness. Another a minute later, she returns energetic but with some dust sticking to her hair.

"Hey!" Nora yelled, popping her head out the dirty window. "This place is empty!"

"More like abandoned," Ren added.

"Why would there be a cabin way out here in Emerald Forest?" Pyrrha checked the chipping wood. "It seems oddly suspicious."

An imaginary light bulb appears over Nora's head, "If no one's living here, we can stay here for our two week break!"

Ren pulled her out the window, "I'm not sure that's such a great idea, Nora."

"Aw, c'mon," she begged, pulling Ren by the sleeve towards the timeworn door. "At least first take a look inside."

Knowing she wouldn't budge even if he said no, Ren sighed, looking back to his two other teammates. Of course they know as well Nora wouldn't go down without a fight, and decide to humor her. Besides, their campsite is only about an hour away and they still got a few hours of daytime left before sleeping for the night.

Where's the harm?

"Fine," dropping the camping bag, Jaune walked over to the door, ignoring Nora's celebratory _yea_ in favor for getting this over with.

Opening the door, a thick layer of dust escapes the house and hits them full force. They're left there standing for a bit, blinking away the dust from their eyes before coughing away bits of dust as they ventured inside the abandon cabin. It's dark. Very dark. Unnaturally dark almost.

Pyrrha tried to see past her nose, "I can't see anything."

Getting an idea, "Here," Jaune creates a Supernova and the entire hallway is lit up in pure light. "Allow me."

Getting a better look of the hallway, they see the paint chipping on the walls as well with four doors leading to all different rooms on each corner of the hallway. One Nora already explored while the other three a complete mystery. And Jaune can't help but wonder what happened to the last people that lived here.

"Let's check out the room Nora went into."

Opening the door, Jaune slowly entered first with his Supernova illuminating the room. The first thing he spots is an old pinkish king-size bed at the corner of the room. Next to that is a dark chocolate dresser that still had some old clothes hanging out one of the drawers. And finally what looks to be a closet with the door wide open, housing nothing inside.

Basically a typical bare bedroom forgotten to the sands of time in this Grimm infested forest. Which, by the way, he's surprised they haven't run into at all yet.

"It's comfy looking," Nora moved closer inside, jumping on the bed that had more dust than possible. "The bed's super soft, too!"

Looking towards the corners, Jaune waves to her, "C'mon, Nora. There are still three more rooms to check."

She follows along beside Ren, giddy at the prospect of a bed.

They reach the second room and Jaune calmly opens the door before shining his Supernova into the room. He peaks inside before jumping back.

"It's... it's," Jaune dramatically steps a few more feet back, eyes wide with terror. "It's... it's!"

"What!" Pyrrha cried reaching for Crocea Mors strapped to her back! She knew something was wrong with this cabin! Go in Nora said. Please she begged. Why did she listen to her crazy teammate! "What is it?!"

Jaune takes another step back, breathing heavily, but then all the fear quickly drains away from his face in favor or a Nora level grin as he shines the Supernova in the room, "It's a bathroom!"

"..."

"Uh, Pyrrha—?"

"That's not funny!" she yelled, hitting him repeatedly on the body. She began to hit him much harder when the laughing started.

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" Jaune only sounded remotely sorry, unable to help himself. He held out his hands to protect his face, eventually grabbing Pyrrha's wrist within her assault. "I couldn't resist!"

Pyrrha didn't need to be told her face was bright red from embarrassment. She could literally feel the blood rushing to her cheeks. It didn't help with Nora snickering behind her with even Ren chuckling a laugh or two. And it especially didn't help with Jaune _still_ laughing!

"It's not funny!" she yelled again, glaring hard at her leader. Jaune got the memo and forced himself not to laugh anymore, instead focusing on checking out the bathroom.

Unlike the room, the bathroom didn't have much dust. All the appliances were there. A shower with a Grimm designed curtain, a toilet that when checked, still flushed amazingly, and a sink and mirror. The coloring was all whitish with light shades of blue hue sinking into the tile flooring. In all, it was a bathroom out in the middle of Emerald Forest and Jaune for a quick second knew that this would probably persuade one of his teammates on actually staying in this cabin.

Shutting the door, they moved towards the end of the hall and checked another room that bore striking resemblance to the other bedroom down the hall except that this one had no window.

Striking three rooms down, they moved towards the final door, pushing it open and walking in to find an old dusty kitchen slash living room with a fireplace. A picture of an unknown Grimm hung over the fireplace above a worn out book with close signs of age edging around the corners.

There's a table by the corner of the room with cobwebs covering the chairs while the kitchen had opened cupboard with cans of food still inside. And besides the tasteful rug on the floor, nothing else really stands out except for the large red couch in the dead center of the room, piecing the room together and a window off to the side which shows the clearing next to the cabin, giving them a perfect view from the kitchen.

Done with the tour, they head outside and Nora's again the first to speak.

"It's like a home away from home!"

Pyrrha can't help but agree, "True. There even is a... _bathroom_ ," she glared back at Jaune who was busy willingly away his Supernova.

Nora hugged Ren from behind, "So can we stay! Please! I'm tired of walking."

Ren raises a silent brow.

She's _tired_ of walking. Not him. The lazy one, the one who's been carrying all her stuff since they left Beacon all those hours ago, but her! Her! The small whine Nora gave when she leaned further on Ren only helped strengthen his resolve that Nora was a closet lazy person. Oh, she may be hyper at times, but at other times, she's even lazier than he is.

Never once thinking about voicing these concerns, he looks to Jaune, "It's the leader's decision, not mine."

Looking pleadingly over Ren's shoulder, Nora whimpers, wobbling her lower lip at Jaune, hugging Ren much tighter than before. The extra force does nothing to his nonchalant teammate, but even Jaune knows that Ren was beyond tired.

He looks away at the setting sun. It was getting dark and the idea of a bed did sound great, even if he had to share one with his fellow male because he doubted Pyrrha wanted to be near him after that little stunt he pulled a few minutes ago. And he's tired from the long trip and his Aura's running low.

Where's the harm?

"I guess we're staying here for the break," he grinned, leaning on the cabin wall.

Nora squealed, letting go of Ren as she ran back inside and quite nosily crashing into walls within the darkness. The windows only provided so much light after all and she came out a second later with bits of dust everywhere on her outfit, still looking positively pleased.

"So we're staying here instead of roughing it in the woods?" Ren asked a minute later, crossing his arms.

Jaune shrugged, "Seems like it."

Tapping his fingers on his forearm, Ren heavily thinks for a moment, staring down at the camping bags beside his feet. He sighs before turning to his leader, a thin lining crossing his mouth.

"Let me get this straight, you're telling me that you and I carried all this _camping_ stuff for nothing?"

"Not for nothing," Nora hums for Jaune, lifting Ren's arm up. "It was a great workout! Besides, you both could use some more upper body strength."

...

Turning in early the night before, Jaune wakes up first to the rising sun peaking over the mountains, feeling his Aura completely recharged. He silently gets up, making sure not to wake up Ren and disturb the guy's totally needed sleep. And he did kind of owe his friend.

Stepping outside to the crisp forest air, he quietly closes the door, taking with him one of Ren's gross health bars for a breakfast choice. Not his greatest move, but anything else would make too much noise and wake his team up.

Walking towards the side of the cabin, he spots the clearing and heads over there, prepared to start practicing his new found Lore control. Lucky for him, Aura and Lore felt as if they shared some similar properties, helping immensely with his control over Lore. Thank Monty Lore and Aura are sort of the same. That makes it much easier to control. There's no way he's going back to dust counting.

And now that the Lore isn't fighting him every step of the way, he's fully prepared to take full advantage of it.

"Alright," he smirks as he begins to switch the Aura in his body with the Lore locked away in his soul. "Time for some training!"

Reaching the clearing, he feels the last of his Aura switch places with his Lore and a dark outline forms around Jaune before dissolving away. The cold feeling comes back to haunt him full force, but he easily pushes that aside, no longer fighting but embracing that fear.

Really does make controlling Lore all that much easier.

"OK! Let's do this!"

Creating a Supernova Lore in his hand—at least his control isn't totally gone—the Lore sphere quickly implodes within itself before falling down onto Jaune's hand once more, shrouding his palm in a layer of darkness, and Jaune's stuck feeling this intense pull coming from his hand. Trapping the Lore squarely to his hand, no matter how hard the leader tried to force otherwise.

How odd.

He tries a few more times, hoping the Supernova stay in form. He knows he's got the control for it, but it keeps falling back into his palm instead.

At this point, the technique couldn't even be called Supernova anymore if the Lore sphere keeps collapsing within itself. He's not even totally sure if this could be called a technique, anymore. Considering Jaune had no idea whatsoever on how to execute a proper whatever when it came to Lore.

Still, he's not giving up on discovering the secrets of Lore just yet. So he couldn't create a Supernova, big deal. Jaune's still got Shooting Star to back him up!

Forming his Aura gun, he concentrated and pulled together Lore towards his palm like for Aura, sensing his limit storage around three Lore sphere at the max. At least the Arc hopes they're Lore spheres and not more of this palm nonsense.

Aiming random towards the clear sky, Jaune's hand gets coated in a thin layer of Lore before he fires his first Lore sphere in absolute success, or at least that's how it started. The Lore ball shot out like an Aura sphere, circular and all, but compared to Aura... it was a bit lacking in the speed department. And by a bit, Jaune meant a lot. A lot-lot Nora would so elegantly put it.

Actually, the Lore orb stopped after traveling around ten feet. Just stopped, floating mid-air like the laws of physics and gravity didn't exist—mocking them almost. Except Jaune could faintly feel a tug coming from that Lore sphere, pulling him like how his Lore covered hand would. He seemed to gravitate towards the Lore sphere, or maybe it was the other way around and the Lore seemed to gravitate towards him.

He did not know yet.

But what he did know was that Lore ball was just hovering roughly ten feet in the air, though through some intense glaring, he did notice it slowly condensed, most likely withering away, but not like Aura.

Noting that, Jaune aimed for a lower ground elevation, curious to observe a Lore sphere closer without the damn thing hanging over his head, and fired promptly. Again the Lore orb traveled slowly about ten feet, stopping in midair again with its companion still hanging over Jaune's head. And yet again, Jaune can feel a tug coming from this one as well, calling out to him.

Hearing the Lore's call, he walked towards the hovering Lore sphere and observed the Lore sphere at a close angle for the first time, noticing unlike an Aura sphere, it was obviously black in color and perceived no light. Hardly larger than his palm, Jaune then reached out and tried to grab the Lore, surprised when he did, that the orb could actually be felt like a solid object.

Unlike Aura that supposedly burns hot and fast, Lore apparently cooled and formed a physical shape.

However, the action is very short-lived as the Lore sphere collapses within Jaune's palm again, once more coaxing his entire palm in Lore. He swiftly feels the pull again coming from his hand before feeling the pull coming from the Lore sphere hanging above his head, only half as large as before.

Feeling something unusual and allowing his instincts to drive him, he calmly extends his hand out towards the Lore sphere hanging above his head, and absently pulls that feeling from the Lore sphere, pushing limits. Nothing happens for a long moment until the Lore orb moves slightly closer to Jaune.

Well, that did nothing.

Absorbing the Lore in his palm, he glares fruitfully at the Lore sphere and tries to summon it towards him without the Lore encasing his hand, and like again, the sphere moves slightly towards Jaune. Well, at least he knew having the Lore on his hand didn't change his pull on the Lore sphere, but he's made very little progress so far.

Maybe it has to do something with his control?

Compared to his Aura control, Jaune's Lore control wasn't too great.

Sighing, he remembered all the times he practiced with his Aura control. Lore and Aura aren't the same and so the control wasn't either, "I'm so confused."

Watching the Lore sphere finally collapse within itself, his briefly notes that none of the Lore from the orb came back to him. Makes perfect sense, Jaune's Aura never comes back unless he's physically holding or hovering his Aura close enough to his body. As a matter of fact, Jaune can still feel one more Lore sphere concentrated into his hand, and this time he decides to fire it close to a rock. Maybe even figure out if Lore could even be used offensively.

Finding a poor unsuspecting boulder, Jaune moved real close, only about three feet away and fired his last Lore sphere. And this time! This time—the Lore sphere bounced on the rock before hovering slowly back harmlessly towards Jaune, stopping halfway in the air, and Jaune can feel a slow twitch starting to form on the edge of his of eye.

He had been afraid... of _this_?!

The damn thing didn't even so much as crack the rock. Compared to Aura so far impressive track record of overly destructive force, Lore _definitely_ wasn't offensive. Not even close. No destructive force! No impossible explosions! No nothing! What good was Lore for then?!

Glaring at the floating black sphere, he laughed lazily, wondering to Monty what Lore actually did, "I hate my life."

Maybe he wasn't being completely fair to the poor energy source?

Giving up for now, Jaune was about to grab and absorb the Lore sphere, but a tiny rock floating in midair collided with his hand as he was reaching out. He paused, slowly grabbing the floating rock before seeing a few others floating as well, all around the hovering sphere. They floated around the sphere, moving around the mass of darkness in a slow never-ending circle.

Stunned for a long time, Jaune eventually grabbed a few more rocks, shuffling them in his hand for good measure. Then he calmly tossed a rock towards the Lore orb, fascinated when it slowed down in mid-air before joining the other small rocks circling around the orb.

Amused, he grinned, tossing a few more rocks, "Okay! Now this is awesome! Finally, we're getting somewhere."

Well, that explains the whole lack of gravity influence thing, he guessed. Sort of.

Almost all of the small rocks floated harmlessly around the sphere until he threw a much larger rock that simply passed by the orb and fell flat on the ground. Confused, he grabbed the rock again and this time coolly moved the rock closer to the orb, even more confused when the rock fell flat.

Going into Lore obsession mode, Jaune grabbed a handful of rocks of different sizes and dumped them above the Lore orb, utterly spellbound when an assortment of different _small_ size rocks floated around the orb. Much larger rocks had merely fell towards the grass floor which Jaune just barely noticed seemed to be attracted to the Lore sphere as well.

All the blades of grass near the orb pointed towards the sphere's direction, being pulled by the same gravity as the rocks, but stuck to the earth. In all, the Lore sphere appeared to be a gravity ball of sorts. Anything small and that weighed little seemed to be affected by the sphere compared to things far heavier. A nice trick Jaune will admit, but hardly offensive when he finally sat down and thought about it.

Tilting his head, Jaune looked at the floating rocks, thinking of some crazy ideas.

Trying to summon the orb closer to him, the sphere hardly moved a foot, and Jaune's forced to think of a way on how to make this discovery of Lore's weird gravitational properties more effective. Maybe better control over Lore would give him a greater gravity input?

"Who knows," he shrugs, smiling at finally figuring something out about Lore other than its cold properties. "Since you love to miss with gravity so much, I think I'll call you Gravity!"

Trying to will Gravity closer, it barely reaches his outstretched hand before collapsing within his palm again, encasing his hand once more in a black layer. The rocks that had been floating quickly fall helplessly to the floor, and Jaune gets a crazy idea. If Gravity can _pull_ objects closer to it, then if it's in his hand, then the same physics must apply!

Reaching out, Jaune felt that same pull from earlier and aimed his hand towards the rocks on the floor, trying to pull them towards him. It doesn't work and he's left standing there like a fool, "I knew that was too much to ask for."

Willing away his Lore, he sighed at his failed experiment, but not completely miserable. At least he learned something about Lore and a new technique. Even if the technique still didn't look like it could help him much in a fight. Well, at least not yet. Give him some time to practice his Lore control and who knows how much Gravity could control!

Speaking of Lore control," Let's see," he mused, counting away with his fingers. "I tried using my Supernova and then Shooting Star and all I got was a new technique. Next should be summoning my Excalibur!"

Excited at the notion of a black looking Excalibur, Jaune stretched his hand out and tried to form his sword—tried being the key word as nothing happened. He tried again, even going as so far as to switch back to his Aura and checking to make sure he could create Excalibur, but no sword formed when he was using Lore. No matter how many times he tried to form the sword, it never came. Oh, he could feel the Lore trying to focus on the actions he wanted, but unlike Aura, he didn't yet have the control to perform the move.

"Great!" he kicked the boulder before leaning on it. "Looks like it's back to training all over again."

Looking at the still early morning sky, Team JNPR's leader figured his team wasn't getting up anytime soon, especially if Nora had her way. It was a good of a time as any to begin his Lore training and he still had nothing better to do, anyways.

Not really sure on how he could improve his Lore control passed his current level, Jaune created a Lore sphere, watching as it collapsed into his hand again. He then focused the Lore to bend into his palm, wondering what to do.

Shooting out the Lore sphere, Gravity floated harmlessly in the air, already attracting a few rocks towards it. Jaune humorlessly stretched out his hand, trying to pull the sphere closer to him. It hardly moved of course, but it did give him an idea.

Trying to pull Gravity once more, the same subtle movement caught his eye, and he wondered. Perhaps learning to pull the Lore sphere could be inferred as training. Jaune didn't see any other alternatives and he's gotten this far based off crazy ideas.

Another wouldn't hurt.

Feeling the Lore bubbling in his soul, he smirked as he reached out towards the sphere, silently calling it forth.

...

Stepping out towards the vacant field after spotting Jaune through the kitchen window, Pyrrha sees Jaune messing with what looks to be three Lore spheres, casually moving them in the air. They moved slowly, and her leader was sweating from obvious training, but he looked outright pleased nevertheless with every little movement that he made.

Walking up to him, her eyes followed the spheres, and she stood behind him, "What are those?"

Caught off-guard, Jaune jumped back, holding a hand over his heart, "Pyrrha! Don't sneak up on a guy like that. You almost gave me a heart attack!"

She giggled at his clumsiness and payback, "Sorry, Jaune," the humor in her eyes made it hard to accept her apology. "So... what are those?"

Feeling his pulse return to normal, Jaune smirked lightly and willed a Lore sphere closer, impressed with himself that he could call the orb from about almost two feet away. Although very slow, the process was still an improvement since he first started this morning.

"I call them Gravity. It's the Lore form of Shooting Star. Here, watch," grabbing a few tiny rocks from the floor, Jaune tossed them towards a single orb and Pyrrha's eyes widen in slight captivation. "Isn't that amazing?!"

She will admit that was impressive, "It truly is... What happens if you throw rocks with all three closer together?"

"You know," he paused, willingly the other Gravities closer. "I haven't thought of that. Let's see."

Bringing them close, Jaune threw more small rocks at the orbs and they floated like usual, however, they ceased to float around the orbs anymore, instead remaining to hover lifelessly in the air. Curious, he got a bigger rock and added it in with the orbs, only slightly amazed that this time it floated with the rest.

Well, he should've seen that coming.

"Looks like the more Gravities I bring closer together, the stronger their pull is," he noted. "So far a single Gravity can only hold the little rocks. See."

Forcing the Gravities to split apart, the much larger rock fell from the lack of force holding it up while the much smaller rocks followed alongside the Lore. To anyone else, the sight would be outright remarkable, but Pyrrha's already found the event normal after baring witness to some of Jaune's more, destructive powers.

And while she's on the thought of destructive powers, "You said this was the Lore's Shooting Star form?"

"Oh, yea, they are," he waved absently, willingly the Gravities back and forth. "Too bad they don't do much on the damage part. I shot one at a rock and nope, nothing! Just bounced off harmlessly away from the stupid rock," he sighed. "So I wouldn't even call it Shooting Star now if I think about it. Just Gravity is fine. Besides, they're too slow to be called _dangerous_."

"At least it seems you have a good grasp on them."

"Are you kidding? Darn things are impossible to move! It's taken me forever to do this!" he willed Gravity back and forth a foot in a very slow speed. "You should've seen this earlier. I could barely budge them. I can't even create a sword yet!"

Wait a second? Earlier? "Jaune? How long have you've been practicing with Lore?"

"I don't know... a couple of hours, maybe."

Worried at the unknown effects Lore could have, Pyrrha gently nudged her leader's interests, "Shouldn't you take a break and go back to your Aura? Who knows what effects Lore could have on you after prolong use? You've never gone this long with Lore before."

"Aw," Jaune waved with Nora level care. "Lore's not that bad after you get past all the freaky darkness. Here! Wanna take a closer look?"

Willing a Gravity sphere closer to his partner, Pyrrha felt a pull coming from the orb and a feeling of dread and coldness immediately washing over her. She took a step closer and that sudden pull got even stronger and all her instincts told her to get away from the Gravity.

Now!

"No... I'm fine," just staring at prone Lore sphere sent chills down her spine. She smiled wistfully as she took a step back, "I'm fine over here."

"Hn?" he shrugged, practicing his control again. "Suit yourself."

Leaving Jaune to his own devices, Pyrrha wasn't even sure how her leader could just stand there and freely manipulate the Gravity orbs around without sensing that feeling of coldness coming from them. Maybe he could and just has gotten so use to it already like his Aura's brightness, or maybe it was something else entirely different.

"Get up, Ren!"

Well, Nora's up. Sounds like poor Ren is too.

Hearing Nora yell, Jaune looked away from his orbs towards the cabin before absorbing all three Gravities. And the moment he did, that strange feeling in Pyrrha's chest went away. The cold feeling still lingered all over her body, but she no longer felt an intense pull.

"I wonder if we can get Ren to make us some breakfast?" Jaune wondered, heading towards the cabin. And he did have a point; Ren did pack a lot of ingredients and instant pancake mix for Nora, knowing full well at how she gets during her pancake withdrawals.

But Pyrrha's just glad that Jaune wasn't practicing his Lore control at the moment.

...

Walking in to find Ren in the kitchen with ingredients for pancakes stacked on the counter, Pyrrha and Jaune spot Nora cleaning up the cobwebs surrounding the room, using one of Jaune's spare shirts to clean, and Jaune does nothing to stop her. Best not to fight a losing battle he decides when Lie Ren was in charge of making his breakfast.

"There you two are!" Nora poked, cleaning a cobweb off from the chairs. "Where were you guys?!"

"I woke up to find Jaune practicing his... Lore outside," Pyrrha answered, still a little unnerved at the thought, but Nora's having none of that.

"Really!" she leans on the table, her eyes sparkle impossibly brighter. "And you didn't wake me up!"

"I woke up kind of early," Jaune laughed, sitting down at the table. "But I can show you something new I learned."

Concentrating more Lore into his palm, he formed his personal gun and fired a Gravity towards the vacant living room. The orb travels slowly in the air before coming to a complete stop midway, and Jaune wills the ball to come towards him, levitating the sphere at the center of the table for Nora to see.

"Whoa!" her eyes get even brighter before she rushes to Ren, pulling his sleeve like Ruby at a weapon's shop. "Ren, look!"

He does so while expertly still preparing breakfast, "And what is that?"

Jaune wills the orb to move closer to Ren, "I call it Gravity. It doesn't do much in the explosion side and I don't think it can do any real damage, but it does seem able to control gravity. For example," he pulls out a few rocks from his pocket, tossing them at the sphere. It floats to Nora's forever amusement and Ren's slight eye widening. "See! They float!"

"Hence the name," Ren stated.

"Yup!"

Unable to control her excitement any longer, Nora rushes over and plucks a few of the floating rocks. She throws them back at the orb, laughing at the fun game she's made for herself. And she continues this against the cold feeling she's been ignoring ever since Jaune summoned the sphere, rationalizing the sensation as nothing but goosebumps.

But when she attempts to touch it, her instincts, like Pyrrha, tell her to move away immediately. She of course ignores this as slight paranoia for venturing into the unknown, but when her hand comes dreadfully closer than Pyrrha ever did, she starts to feel a little woozy and hesitantly backs off.

Though she hides it well, Ren still sees right through her, walking up towards her and subtly pulling her away from the Lore sphere. He's not sure if it's the orb or the cold forest air, but he's not taking any chances once that feeling of coldness filled his lungs. The same feeling his leader had described feeling when he first accessed this dark power.

"You might want to put that out, Jaune," Ren informed, finishing up the breakfast platter. "We don't want any of the food to start floating now."

Not seeing the tense movements from his teammates as he played with with his Gravity, Jaune absorbed the sphere, grinning, "Good idea."

Feeling the warmth coming back to them, Pyrrha breathed a sigh of relief and sat down at the table beside her leader. Nora joined so after and Ren set the table and food out, serving his teammates the fruits of his labor, both figuratively and literally.

"Let's eat!" Nora pounces at her defenseless pancake, smiling a pancake filled smiled at Ren. "These are the best pancakes you've ever made, Ren!"

"You say every time I make you pancakes."

"That's because it's true every time!"

Enjoying both their cheerful banter and Ren's cooking skills, which was a godsend compared to Beacon's current chef strike, Pyrrha got a better look around the room as natural light filled the corners.

The room was a deep rich color of chocolate as the others and the fireplace was made of stone. The picture of the Grimm hanging above the fireplace was one she still didn't recognize, but the monster appeared fierce, dragon like in appearance. Below that picture leaned a book on the stone wall, most likely long forgotten by its previous owners.

The champion will admit, she's curious. And the curiosity gets the better of her, forcing her to stand up and walk over and pick up the book gently, afraid that she'll break the fragile literature.

"Whatcha got there, Pyrrha?" Nora asked with a mouthful of pancakes.

What a great question.

Time to find out the answer.

"I don't know," she sits down and opens the tomb, glazing over the words written down in a sequence of lines. "It seems to be a dictionary."

"A dictionary?" Jaune repeats.

"Exactly, though it appears to be very old. See here," she points at a random word. "Amend. That's a word no one uses anymore or even exist in modern dictionaries." She flips through the pages, scanning random words. "A lot of these words aren't used anymore. This book's ancient."

"So it's an old book," Nora poked, silently grabbing a piece of Ren's pancake. "Maybe we should keep it! Give it a nice loving home! Wait—we could give it to Blake! She loves books and she's always hanging out in our room... so it's perfect!"

Pyrrha nods at the idea, placing the book down and attacking her own breakfast. But her eyes keep traveling back down at the worn passage, getting an even bigger question on her mind... how old is this cabin?

The dictionary appears to be far too old to just be lying around randomly here.

Someone must of found this book and—perhaps she's thinking too hard on the matter. After all, it's just an old dictionary from Monty knows where. Who knows if the person even read the book, very less actually left it on purpose behind to avoid carrying unnecessary weight.

It's just an old dictionary with words no one uses anymore.

Nothing too special.

...

Having finished their breakfast, Jaune led his team outside to the clearing, telling them he had a surprise for them. A training surprise. And they stood patiently in the clearing with their respected weapons drawn, ready for Jaune's surprise. Well, Pyrrha and Ren stood, Nora lounged lazily on the boulder Jaune attempted earlier to break to pieces.

"So I've decided," he started off, winging this decision. "I'm going to help you improve your Aura control," from the questionable stares, he adds, "Think of it as a way of saying thanks... for... everything."

No one says anything for a minute until Nora sits right up, leaning impossibly far off the boulder without actually falling over the side, eyes wider than he's ever seen. It's also the biggest smile he's ever seen on her face, ever.

"Really!" she squeals, jumping up and down on the rock.

He finds her attitude contagious, "Yes, really, Nora."

Before Jaune could prepare himself for the inevitable, Ren intervenes and quickly grabs Nora before she could leap out and strangle their leader in a death hug. Don't get him wrong, she's still very much fidgeting in his hold, trying to break free in a pointless effort. And eventually she tires herself out, hanging aimlessly in under Ren's arm.

Dropping Nora back on the rock, Ren's eyes never wavered away from his leader, "And how exactly will you be teaching us?"

Jaune grinned, waving his hand in an endless circle, "OK! I may not be some _professor_ , but I'm pretty sure I can help you find some way to improve your Aura control."

"Are you sure, Jaune?" Pyrrha asked, grabbing Crocea Mors.

"Of course! What kind of leader would I be if—?"

"Could you teach me to make a Supernova?" Nora cuts in, jumping and forever claiming the rock as her own.

He shrugs, "Depends on how good you are. You might not even be able to control your Aura at all for all I know. But I'm still going to give it my all. And I expect you too!"

"You got it," Nora saluted, getting lost in a day dream with her very own version of Supernova at her disposal.

Pulling out his Aura notebook, Jaune tossed the book at Ren who honestly thought it was a good idea to get a better handle on his Aura. But first, "And again, _how_ exactly do you plan to teach us?"

Smirking, how else! "Beats me! We're going to wing it. That's how I learned to control my Aura!" Well, that and dust counting. But he'll damned if he let's Nora on that let little secret.

Still, he gets mixed, positive reactions.

Nora can't nod fast enough to the idea, Pyrrha seems perfectly intrigued at the idea, and Ren's fixing his leader a questionable gaze at best. But none of them were straight out saying _no_. Why would they? Free Aura training!

And Jaune Arc may not know, but he's got his team's full support. They believe in him unconditionally.

"And when exactly did you want to start?" Pyrrha asked.

Looking around the empty clearing and spotting the still high sun,"How about now or later if you want. We could always go exploring first."

Nora is the first to jump at the chance of now, shifting closer to her Fearless Leader with Pyrrha eventually following suit. Ren smiled , sitting beside Nora, wondering still how their Fearless Leader planned to teach them Aura control.

Weirder things have happened.

Unsure on how to start, Jaune scratches the side of his head, thinking where a lesson in Aura control should begin. Monty knows he's not cut out to be a professor.

Before he could wing anymore of this plan, Pyrrha interrupts, "You're not still using Lore... are you?"

"Yea," he answers slowly. "... Why?"

"Well," she smiles wistfully, not liking the idea of her leader exposed to that power any longer, "Maybe you should switch back to your Aura, Jaune."

"It would be kind or weird if you're trying to teach us Aura control while you yourself aren't using Aura," Ren added.

Thinking it over, Jaune touches his face, "Well... it would be nice to be warm again."

Switching his powers, Jaune feels all the coldness leaving his body the moment his Aura filled his soul. That numbness he felt in chest is gone and his smile even gets brighter than before.

He almost forgot how great Aura felt.

Now that that's done, he starts thinking of a way to teach his teammates Aura control. Eventually an idea pops into his head and he begins by simply letting his Aura wash over him in a nice shade of snow, illuminating each corner of his body. By starting off where he got his inspiration to use his Aura as a weapon, Jaune planned to walk them through each part of his process one step at a time.

"So?" he trails, lifting his glowing hand. "I'm guessing you can all least glow, right?"

The slow, absent blinks he receives does not bode too well for Jaune Arc.

* * *

 **Author Notes:** Edited **10/28/2016**


	11. Shadow

**Disclaimer:** I own nothing of RWBY.

* * *

 **Shadow**

 **By: Imyoshi**

Turns out teaching Aura control is not the same as leading a team with no background history of combat skills whatsoever.

Leading was easy—being a leader was easy.

Teaching Aura control was supposedly impossible.

And he's come to learn this from a whole wasted day of training.

The truth of the reality, everyone's Aura was vastly different, just like their personalities or souls. No two of them were the same, which meant he couldn't train someone with a different biological setting. It was a matter of impossibility. Nothing simpler.

That didn't mean he didn't try and teach them from where he learned. And the face they made would forever be ingrained into his memory, most especially Nora's and her arrogant grin. Though to be fair, she had every point to be, right down to the never-ending teasing.

Dust counting! It always came back to dust counting. And, really, he didn't know why dust counting helped him solve the secrets of Aura, forever a mystery to the young Arc. Maybe it was because Aura was just crazy like that or maybe it had something to do with dust being the basic foundation where everything starts off from, right down to the smallest of particles. Same like the universe. Ren's far-fetched, impossible theory, not his.

And he really didn't know. None of it made any sense. None of it!

But he told them, and they tried to absorb the knowledge like a dying sponge to a puddle of water. Didn't work. Neither Ren nor Pyrrha really had the patience to count dust in the air, and he couldn't blame them. It's more of an unfocused activity one does alone and not for training purposes.

Like Nora and him.

And after trying for many hours to count at least the fewest specs of dust, someone always losing count on which ones they did count or whether or not that was something in their eyes, both Ren and Pyrrha gave up for the day. Nora on the other hand expertly counted the dust, actually feeling _something_ vaguely familiar to what she described as Aura control, but only after forgetting _why_ she had been counting in the first place.

But she's very limited and not that all good at it. Better than both Ren and Pyrrha he will admit from watching her Aura bend ever so lightly to her will, but very weak and uncoordinated. It might've had something to do with her Aura being so chaotic and wild, as trying to control something like that was the same as trying to control Nora herself.

It couldn't be done.

They did say her Aura was a manifestation of one's soul and if that was the case, then he couldn't really help her learn to control that power. That was all on her and her alone. And when he told her this, told her he's at his limit at what he could teach her, her face scrunched in unbelievable sadness for the briefest of moments, only to be replaced again with a happy-go-lucky attitude that the Arc didn't believe for a second.

A crack is what he saw. It was small and insignificant and he would've missed it except he's seen it too many times these past two weeks. Short and almost non-existent, really. And when it came down to it, Jaune wasn't even sure if she did frown at all, but someone sure knew, but she said nothing, hoping nothing bad would come from it.

Two days later into their training trip and none of Jaune's teammates haven't come any closer to even glowing. Pyrrha and Ren eventually don't bother trying too hard to control their Aura, using some of the break to actually relax and hone their skills instead. Ren practices a little still, feeling like he should at least be able to glow, but Pyrrha seems to have thrown in the towel and instead settled to relax and have friendly spars with Jaune and his Aura sword every so often. On the side note, his Aura sphere storage within his palm seems to have increased to three. A nice surprise.

Nora on the other hand has yet to let the dust counting thing go, and Jaune doubted she would anytime soon. Strangely, not only is she's also the only one able to kind of control her Aura to an extent, she finally learns to glow midway into day three. A very marginal extent compared to his Aura control, but still greater than Pyrrha or Ren's. Sadly, that seems to also be the wall she's hit, unable to glow brightly or for very long. And based off the way her Aura refused to move within her Space, Jaune could almost safely say Aura control to even his weakest level was practically beyond her reach.

Such a shame, Nora really wanted her own Supernova. It's all she's been talking about non-stop for the past three days. Honestly begging Monty to give her the power. And the leader feels bad at not being able to be anymore help. He's just not cut out for this teaching stuff.

With him unable to teach them much, Jaune finds a large boulder nearby some trees and sits down to relax and practice more of his control over his Lore. Nora continues to practice her Aura control in what appeared to be desperation, Ren watches the clouds, and Pyrrha swings around Crocea Mors in an impressive display of skill.

Another normal day for Team JNPR.

...

Laying tiredly on a rock outside of the clearing with a single Gravity orb hanging close by, Jaune practiced moving the orb without his hands and only his sheer willpower. A lost effort as nothing much except for the occasional twitch came from the orb, but whenever his hands came into play, the orb reacted more. And by reacted, he meant still very slow. Faster than when he first discovered the technique, but slower to be used as a firing projectile of any king.

Moving the Gravity back and forth, Jaune mindlessly tossed a few stones towards the orb, still fascinated by the effect on gravity the Lore sphere had on them. The stones drifted endlessly around the orb, defying many of the laws of physics he's come to somewhat know. Makes him wonder what other uses Lore could have or the unknown properties still lurking beneath the dark abyss that hovered before him. Mysteries of this dark power begged to be solved, and he wanted to be the one to solve them.

He's so lost in the oddity that Jaune didn't notice Ren walk up until he practically sat beside Jaune, interrupting his stargazing by only the sudden shift of the wind and soft thud of the dirt.

Ren doesn't say anything at first, pushing away that alarming instinct to move away from the Lore sphere, but he absently studied the Gravity to an unnerving level. Little things here and there he silently picked up, like the fact that no light seemed to bounce off the pitch-black orb, refusing to have any shine whatsoever from the sun or how unnaturally cold it got whenever the orb and his proximity became compromised, no matter the temperature.

Jaune never seemed to notice any of this, or perhaps his leader simply didn't care too much, far more fascinated with the inner working of Lore capabilities than the rich darkness those orbs gravitated that seemed to pierced into his very soul. Ren wasn't entirely sure, content to letting his leader to break the barriers and push past the limits of understanding Aura.

Conversely, watching Jaune carelessly move around the Gravity in the air sparked something in the man, allowing him to truly see the person everyone labeled as _no threat_. Truly fools they were. Never underestimate your opponent, Grimm or man, a rule drilled into hunters-in-training from day one, and yet most thought the rules didn't apply to their leader. Again, simply foolish views from foolish individuals who've let their opinions get the better of them.

Jaune broke Ren's train of thought by making the Gravity do a small barrel in the air before willingly it to lower closer to the grass and hover for a bit, attracting the thin blades of grass towards the mass of gravity. Aura prodigy or not, their leader still loved to have fun. Reminded him a lot of his riv—?!

No, that's absurd. She's not his rival. Ruby's only being ridiculous and unnecessarily stubborn. It's not completely his fault she has yet to beat him in a spar. Maybe if she stopped eating such unhealthy portions of sugar and used her time more efficiently on her footwork, then feasibly she could keep up. Not likely, he knows, but he digresses.

Forcing away the thoughts, Ren spares a glance at Jaune silently maneuvering his hand towards the Lore sphere, pushing the orb farther away and thus ridding Ren of that cold feeling bearing down on him. Did nothing to the demoralizing glare the orb seemed to give naturally, but the movements still impress the ninja.

"I still can't believe you learned this all on your own."

"Hn?" Jaune stops his controlling of his Gravity, allowing the orb to hover near the floor. The saying gets his attention, creating a grin on his lips, "I know, huh? That's what I thought. I mean, Aura control shouldn't have been this easy." Secretly Jaune had hoped Ren could grasp the basics of Aura control, already having a foundation to start with. Alas, it appeared naught, just like Pyrrha.

Ren peered over to Pyrrha and Nora, noting their no progress, "Maybe it's your semblance?"

He expects Jaune to agree if not at least think about it, but he's generally surprised instead, "I don't think so. If so, how do you explain this then?" Pointing to the Gravity, he calmly moves it away, still practicing his control. Every second counts, and the Vytal tournament is only getting closer with each. "If Aura control is my semblance, then this here makes no sense to me."

"No more than it does for me either."

"Besides," he shrugs, pointing directly at Ren. "Every time I see someone use their semblance, be it Pyrrha, Weiss, Ruby, it really doesn't matter, they always get surrounded by this strange power or have this power following them. It's a lot..." pausing, a thought comes to him. "It's a lot like yours! I can totally tell the difference between your semblance and your Aura. But for me, I feel no difference."

Hearing the words and trying hard to grasp the concept, Ren casually controls his Aura, influencing some of his semblance into the air. The effect is immediate and Jaune's sneezing from the sudden pollen in the wind, throwing off his leader's control over Gravity, but he manages to quickly halt and regain control over the orb before it could pick up speed and deteriorate.

Knowing Ren had something to do with his sudden sneezing, Jaune turned to glare but the action dies as a new sensation gradually overcomes him. Slowly Ren's pink Aura becomes visible again to his eyes for the first time while he's manipulating Lore. There's no Space, but he can see his Aura.

Just to make sure he's not dreaming, he blinks a few times, ultimately rubbing his eyes for good measure as a last precaution. But nope, Ren's pinkish Aura glows bright and before he knows it, he's already looking across the clearing and spots Nora and Pyrrha's Aura as well.

Jaune couldn't stop the grin on his face even if a pack of Beowolves jumped out the woods and charged directly at him. The moment's too powerful for words.

"What are you looking at?" Ren poked, sitting up more.

Seeing Ren's Aura react to his hasty mood shift made the Arc laugh, and the moment's only funnier when Ren checks to see if something is hidden on his person. He doesn't blame the poor guy with a best friend like Nora always lurking over his shoulder with her unexpected tendencies. There's most likely a story or two if he dug deep enough, but for now, he's damn happy.

Ending his laugh, Jaune grins, "I can finally see your Aura now while using Lore."

Ren frowned, never knowing his leader's Lore control was that limited. For such a dangerous power, he worried for him. "You couldn't before?"

"Nope!" he's too happy to care. "Still can't feel your Space though, but at this rate, I'll get there."

Thinking over the implications of better control of the dark power, Ren agreed, "I guess that means your control is getting better. Maybe soon you'll be able to create a sword out of Lore."

Picturing an Excalibur made out of the dark substance excites Jaune and he calls Gravity to approach him, wanting to maybe try and manipulate the orb now but knowing he couldn't yet by instinct, "Yea..."

As he wills the sphere closer and closer, his eyes widen lightly at the small pink stands of Aura being pulled towards Gravity. The closer it gets to them, the more of Ren's Aura seems to be literally gravitating towards the sphere, being pulled deep into the cold chasm that was Gravity. Doing what appears to be draining away his teammate's Aura in a never-ending fashion.

Stopping the orb and mind racing, Jaune's head whips over to Ren and for first time since he's created Gravity, he's noticing the leveled pained expression on his friend's face and the tense posture he's suddenly taken with his shoulders hunched and body rigid. Then there's his Aura altogether. The energy, the very manifestation of his soul seemed to be bending to Gravity's will, pulling Ren's Aura constantly with none escaping.

But that's impossible.

He wrote in his Aura notebook—which now that he thinks about it, he should get himself a Lore notebook—that aura wasn't affected by gravity. At least that's how it appeared to be. But now if Gravity's pull can affect him and his Aura and Lore was considered downright dangerous to be around, then... then now—?!

Springing forward, Ren's caught off guard from Jaune's sudden quick actions, even more so when his leader grabbed the Lore sphere, quickly draining away the orb back into the resides of his soul, thus robbing away the cold feeling washing over him and killing the instincts to run. But the calm doesn't settle his nerves; the storm is only just approaching.

Shifting his sights back on Ren, Jaune can see his Aura no longer being pulled away or disrupted, but he still takes note at how much less Ren has than before and how much easier his body has relaxed. Gravity had been draining away his Aura, pulling the power and light into a black hole of sorts, unable to escape once caught. And what a terrifying thought and power.

Forget his earlier assumption that Lore had no offensive capabilities. Lore was devastating if what he saw was true. Far more earth shattering than he could ever think possible. And that's a lot from a guy whose entire arsenal consisted of Aura based attacks that favored enormous explosions and Aura piercing bullets of blinding light.

"Jaune," Ren asked, standing up as well. "What's wrong?"

Glaring at his palm, Jaune slowly closes his hand, releasing a breath he hadn't know he'd been holding. Everything, everything was wrong. Or maybe nothing was wrong. He didn't know. Nothing made much sense to him right now, but what he did focus on was Ren's earlier posture, practically engraving the trapping of his Aura into his brain.

Still unable to fathom what he just witness, he silently sighed, turning his head towards Ren, "H-How long... Ren... Ren, how does it feel when you're around my Gravity or just me in general whenever I'm messing around with my Lore?"

Sensing his leader's unnaturally powerful concern, the very same he had with the issue of Pyrrha; Ren avoided his questioning gaze to settle on Nora and Pyrrha training. Guess that cold unbearable feeling hadn't all been in their head. Kind of nice actually. For a second there, the stoic male thought his natural fears were just getting the better of him.

"When you're covered in your Lore, nothing," he answered honestly, giving Jaune a subtle sideways glance. "But whenever you have those Gravities hovering close by, it feels as if a cold sensation washes over me. I feel my instincts telling me to move away from your Gravity. I'm pretty sure the same goes for Nora and Pyrrha. Believe me, I've noticed. They both have the same reaction as well."

The words sluggishly melted into Jaune's brain, forcing the leader to lightly touch his skin at the mention of a cold sensation. Like the one he feels whenever he uses Lore—like right now. That cold sensation? Couldn't be?

Could it?

Sensing for his Lore, Jaune allows some to glow around his palm in a calm outline of black, not completely obscuring his vision of his hand, but definitely hiding away some of the color of his skin. Unlike Aura's warm comforting feeling, Lore felt ice to the touch, robbing away that same warmth. It's something he's practically use to now, but never once actually look too deeply into.

After all, maybe there was a reason Lore robbed the light and _trapped_ the warmth from reaching his body.

Adding more Lore to his hand, Jaune felt the similar sensation of a gravitational feeling within his hand; quickly looking back up to Ren and seeing if his Aura was being pulled in. No such luck, but that matters little to him.

What does matter however, "How come you never told me?"

"I can't speak for Nora or Pyrrha, but at first I assumed it was just irrational fear for the unknown," he paused, sparing Jaune a look. "But now I could assume that you have a better explanation?"

Adding ever more Lore to his palm, the gravitational pull becomes just as powerful as when his Supernova _collapses_ into his hand, completely concealing his hand in a dusk of bleak. Jaune then blinks once at Ren, remembering Gravity's effect on his Aura and quietly lifts his hand at him, acting once on that gravitational pull as he tried a couple days earlier on his Lore spheres, only this time aiming it at something Aura based.

"Yea, I do," embracing the feeling and allowing them to guide him, his dark hand forms a small vortex around his palm and Jaune can instantly see Ren's Aura being sucked into his palm in an alarming rate, trapping his Aura with the power surprisingly like a—like a, "Trap... Black Hole."

Jaune of course quickly releases the action, only trapping a tiny bit of Ren's Aura, but he's still surprised at both the discovery of some of Lore's properties and the way Ren's body jerked a bit forward from the move. He's even more so when Ren's Aura clung tighter to his own body, looking as if it was waiting purposely for another dose of Lore.

The discovery excites him even more, but he's instantly on guard when Ren's staring at him with widening eyes, holding a hand above his chest in a defensive stance without any form of recognition to what just happened. The action immediately fills the Arc with dread, only now realizing the possible harm he could've done to his teammate and friend. Not to mention his only _male_ friend at that.

Don't get the Arc wrong, he likes his female friends, but there is only so much he could listen to the girls talk about girlish products, boy bands, fattening foods, and guys before he wants to throw himself into a lake and wait to see how long until the bubbles stop popping.

The temptation only grows stronger each day.

"Sorry about that, I didn't really think about what I was doing," he grinned sheepishly, rubbing the back of his head in guilt. "It just sort of happened."

Normally Ren would demand a better apology or even a better explanation, but he knows Jaune isn't one-hundred percent himself while playing around with that dark power, remembering his leader's first depressing mood swings when he first learned to contact the strange power, and the idea of possibly discovering something new about Lore probably overwhelmed his poor leader's love to discover. So he's not too surprised from his impulsive action, half-expecting something of the sorts.

But still, "You owe me," it wasn't a question and Jaune nods before Ren continues. "Now... what was that?"

Grinning larger, Jaune lifted out his hand, moving his fingers playfully, "That my friend... was Lore."

"What?"

"You asked if I knew what that was about and that strange feeling you guys have been getting. Well I just figured it out thank you very much," sitting back down, Ren followed suit and Jaune leaned back on the rock, moving his palm out. Seconds later he forms his gun and fires a lone Gravity out towards the clearing as far as possible before his control starts to slip. "You see there, how Gravity pulls all that small stuff close to it?"

"I do," Ren affirmed, glad Jaune pushed the sphere very far away this time. He can still feel that jolting sensation around his body from when Jaune did that... _Black Hole_ technique. He'll have to wait and see what his leader says about that.

Willingly the orb to move up and down, he plays with the sphere, "Well it turns out that Lore might have an effect on gravity."

"I thought we already established that your Gravity... affects gravity?"

"No!" he jumps, willingly the orb to crash down onto the floor and thus picking up a few pebbles on its ascent back up. "I think all of Lore has something to do with gravity! Earlier when I... when I," his energetic tone lost its bravo. "When... I moved my Gravity closer to you, I saw through Space your Aura being pulled into the orb, practically bending to the will of Gravity."

Ren's got to give his leader some credit, that double meaning in the sentence proved to be impressive, but moving aside that silly notion, he silently absorbed the bits of knowledge Jaune told him, feeling some of the puzzle he's been stuck with finally piecing itself back together.

However, not all the pieces yet fit.

"If I remember correctly Jaune, you stated that Aura didn't bend to gravity."

"I know what I said! C'mon," he throws his hands up, feeling defensive. "Cut me some slack here, I'm going in blind here, remember? It's not like anyone just so happened to toss me a manual on how this Aura control stuff works. It's all still new to me."

Ren wonders if he should tell his leader he had only been half joking, but fights the urge, enjoying the defensive tone he's fighting with. Of course he knows Jaune's still learning all this; being the only one capable of such a task must be an unimaginable burden.

But revenge does sure feel sweet. And speaking of the reason behind his revenge, "... So with your hand... you...?"

"Oh? That?" lifting up his hand, Jaune encasing his palm in Lore, feeling the same exact gravitational pull as before. "After seeing Gravity draining away your _Aura_ , I had this strange idea that to test whether or not the same rules apply for this. And it did after I used it on you—again, sorry for that! And that's where I got the idea that maybe all Lore is connected to gravity. Maybe Aura can only be affected by Lore?"

Lie Ren doesn't think he'll ever get use to Jaune being so passionate about something. Seeing his leader talk and act with Nora level enthusiasm always intrigued him, allowing him to compare his leader to his past self and then current self, many times. The anomalies are too different to properly compare.

Willingly away both his Black Hole and Gravity, Jaune's mind raced at the endless possibilities, not yet fully seeing the bigger picture, "So if Lore can pull and trap aura like a black hole, then do you know what this means?!"

"... That Lore is dangerous to anyone using Aura, including your own team."

He stops halfway with a grin on his face that slowly dies, molding into a stubborn frown, "Well... after the way you said it, it sounds all bad and stuff."

 _It was bad_ was what Ren wanted to say. There's probably a reason no one had pitch-black Aura. And there's probably an ever bigger reason to why Lore had all these nasty side effects like mood depression, cold skin, a sense of weariness—the list went on! But throw in this Aura draining business and Jaune's got himself a damn scary power with a greater drawback.

On the other side, he's limited to one or the other. Aura or Lore. One cannot coexist with the other. And then there's the fact that his Lore spheres seemed to have an almost set slow speed and distance that they could only move so far before their effect on Aura seems to wear off and lessen, along with his leader's control. While compared to his Aura's overly pure destructive power, blinding brightness, and incredible speed, Lore seemed very lacking in the offensive capabilities still. More on the teetering edge of purely self-defense that's overwhelming offense.

Pyrrha once mentioned to him that Jaune's Aura attacks burned with a white-hot intensity from even the barest of cuts, while they could all silently agree that Lore's manifestation had such a cold presence. Essentially, Aura was like fire, it burned hot and fast, destructive in nature while Lore was like ice, it was cold and slow, but dangerous all on its own in the long run, slowly killing you compared to fire, draining the life out of you. Pretty much the personification that the greatest offense is the best defense. And when it came down to it, both Aura and Lore were dangerous on their own accord.

Still, he didn't want to crush his leader's ambitions. Who knows what would happen if he did that. Besides, Jaune's not a bad guy, only a little misguided.

Looking over to where the Gravity had originally been floating, Ren spots the pebbles sprawled lazily across the floor, recounting the conclusion his leader has jumped on.

Lore had control over gravity.

That would explain the weird pulling sensation he felt when Jaune pointed his Lore covered hand towards him, trapping his Aura as he so put it with the effect of gravity equivalent to a black hole, literally pulling him a few inches from where he stood.

It appeared the closer his control, his hand, the stronger the pull. And if what Pyrrha said was true, the more Gravities he had around, the larger the stones he could pick up, essentially confirming the theory once more for closeness and control. In all, Lore was a very controversial power. A power when Ren thought right down to it, everyone possibly had stored away within their souls.

The theory makes him wonder if Lore could be accessed like Aura?

Pushing those thoughts away, Ren returns back to his distraught friend, not wanting Jaune to push away his connection from the dark power after what he's just learned. Like it or not, he would prefer Jaune have a control over that power than naught. Far better in the long run.

"It's just different," he diverted, smiling lowly when some of Jaune's bravo returned. "Besides, I've just thought of something," pointing at Jaune's hand and at the lone pebbles scattered on the field, Ren added, "When you used that hand technique—!"

"I'm calling it Black Hole!"

"—on me, not only did I feel a strange pull on my Aura, but my body sort of moved as well." Placing the smallest of concerns away, his stoic friend picked up a stone and tossed it with the others. "If your Lore spheres could control gravity, then maybe they could make you lighter or heavier as well with enough practice?"

Jaune seemed to think over this, leaning back onto the rock, "Maybe... but what good would that do?"

Sometimes Ren wonders how someone so smart could be so dumb.

"Think about it," he urged, remembering Pyrrha's tale. "If you could control the gravity around you, you could become lighter, you could dodge attacks more effectively, and if you were heavier, then your swings would pack more power behind them. You could also perhaps control the amount of impact you take from falling by lessening the gravity around you with high enough control."

Of course it's all a theory.

"..."

"Jaune?"

"See!" clasping his arm around Ren's, Jaune grinned largely, slapping his buddy on his back. "This is why you're the brains of the team!"

Well... he's not called the Well of Infinite Knowledge for nothing.

"I'm going to keep practicing on my Lore control right now!"

Channeling some Lore into his hand, Jaune's about to begin practicing more on his Lore control until he feels the temperature difference between Ren and him, comparing the vastly different body temperatures in slight fascination where he's warm and he's cold. Plus he's starting to feel the strain from prolong use and practice of his Lore, feeling his reserves starting to drop.

It was probably a good as time as any to take a break on his Lore control.

Without much argument, he switches back to Aura, instantly feeling the positive emotions that come with it, including the higher warmth and sense of control. He could even feel Pyrrha and Nora's Space now, mutely wondering when his level of Lore control will reach high enough to feel the pressure their Space released.

All in due time.

"You know what," Jaune mumbled, leading Ren towards the girls. "On second thought, I think I'm good on my Lore training for today. Too much of a good thing can't be good... or at least I think that's what the saying goes?" Passing one of the lone pebbles, another idea sparks his mind, "Instead, I think I'm going to practice adding Aura to those Dust shards now. No time like the present!"

"They're called Dust crystals, Jaune."

"Eh!" he shrugged. "Shards sound way cooler." Ren doesn't argue, finding no reason to, and as they get closer to their partner, Jaune scratches the side of his face innocently. "By the way, mind telling Nora and Pyrrha what we just talked about. I'm too lazy to go over it. And you're sooo much better at explaining things than me."

Ren stops walking which in turn halts Jaune, "... Aren't I supposed to be the lazy one?"

"I know," he remarked, thinking he's not the only one going through some mood change, "you've really changed these last few weeks. Nora hasn't been able to keep her eyes off you."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

His leader blinked at him once, smirking smugly away from him, "Man you're as dense as a rock."

"Look who's talking." Ren counters.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

...

Hiding himself in the cabin's living room, Jaune's into day three on this force Aura into this Dust shard experiment, taking a small, well-earned break. Three days into it with a Gravity floating close by for company, his attempts to add any amount of Aura to a white Dust crystal are met with zero success. He makes sure to will away the spheres before his teammates walk by, not wanting to accidentally drain away their Aura. Currently the Gravity held some of his Dust shards, mindlessly floating them around it like a sun with its planets. Strange of the analogies he thinks of.

Glaring intensely with Ruby level determination, Jaune willed away Gravity, watching a few of the shards drop carelessly onto the wooden table. He looks at the shards and back down to his Aura notebook and scratches another idea off. Yet another failed attempt at adding any Aura or even Lore to the shards, and the constant string of failures are starting to eat away at him.

Damn, did he hate puzzles!

Switching back to his Aura with his break time over, Jaune holds up a Dust shard with one hand and then looks over to his other, silently calling a Supernova. He measures down the brightness of the sphere, finding it funny how his Supernova collapses due to the gravity into a Black Hole when he switches from Aura to Lore. That's definitely an oddity.

Winging an idea at this point, Jaune slowly touches the shard and his Supernova together, watching sparks happen when the two collide. The crystal doesn't break under the Aura's power, something he's sure has to do with the sole fact that said crystal was made from Dust, but nothing he does can force Aura into the damn crystal, and he's silently wondering if this was simply impossible.

"I should've been a farmer..."

"Hey, Fearless Leader!" Nora suddenly booped, leaning over his shoulder and hanging onto the chair. "Whatcha doin'?"

Not caught off guard from feeling Nora's Space outside suddenly disappeared, Jaune had half expected her either to be taking a break from her intense Aura training—an unlikely thought which made him consider the second choice—or to be sneaking up on him after knowing he could sense her Aura as long as he was using his.

Too bad she messed up. If she wanted to sneak up on him, then all she needed to do was keep her Aura active, but make sure her control gets lower as she approaches, thus making her leader think she was still outside.

Of course Jaune wasn't planning on telling her this.

Separating the thought and the two objects, Jaune grumbled, leaning his head back over the chair's neck to look backwards at Nora's contagious smile, "I'm trying to add Aura to this Dust shard."

"And how's that going?"

Pressing the two objects together again, sparks flied, "Not good."

Nora hummed thoughtfully for a moment, slowly grinning a sly grin with eyes twinkling with untold mischief. Something tells Jaune to be worried, but he's not sure exactly why. "Maybe you could, I don't know... try to steal the idea from someone else, Mr. Dust Counter!"

Oh yea, she's still stuck on that. First she thought he cheated; now she thinks the whole world is out to get her. He couldn't blame her. Where she too counted all the dust specs in the room, her Aura control was laughable at its worst compared to his and sorry at its best. Like her, her Aura refused to listen. All wild and untamable like the exact way she was. There was no way Nora could find a way to tame such electrifying power.

In a way, it was kind of sad. She _really_ wanted to tame that power. Never once stopping her Aura training and even going to such lengths of actually losing her smile through the sheer effort. Before Lore, Jaune's not sure if he would've noticed her quick depressing moods that had started growing in numbers. But he did notice the small bouts of doubt and even sadness that slowly seemed to break from Nora, and he wished he could erase it.

But then Jaune's stuck wondering if she's truly sad or if it's his mind playing tricks on him.

Still, Nora seemed fine, so he'll take the bait for now.

"You're never gonna let go of that, are you?"

"Uh-uh!" she shakes her head, whipping him with some of her hair. "I demand pancakes for all the emotional damage you put me through!"

"How about a friendly pat on the head?"

She pokes him on the nose, already skipping out of the room before he could return the favor. Somehow he knows she's going to get those pancakes out of him one way or another. Jaune just hopes it's not an embarrassing way. He's just finally getting some credibility at school. Be such a damn shame to lose it all now over some pancakes.

Mostly out the door, Nora's voice got softer the farther she skipped down the hall, "Maybe you should try holding the rock and moving your Aura into it like when you switch between that Lore stuff?"

Jaune blinked curiously, snorting eventually at her simple idea.

Yea, sure, like it was _that_ easy.

"Even if that did work, how would I get the Aura out?" he yelled back.

"Maybe you should try eating it!" she teased, slamming the door shut.

Hanging his arm back onto the chair with his feet kicked out, he willed away Supernova, holding the Dust fragment closer to his face, and scrunched up his eyes at the damn shard like the answers were all just hidden someone in its white crystallize structure. They weren't, but he tried anyways. And after staring at the gem for over a whole minute, he moves it around his fingers, thinking back to Nora's fleeting words.

"Try holding the rock and move my Aura into it when I'm switching?"

She really did make it sound so simple.

Running on the idea, Jaune quietly switched back to his Lore, feeling the pull of soul fluctuations with the switching of powers and sides of his soul. If Lore is the control of gravity and he knows how to switch out his Aura with his Lore, then perhaps Jaune could find a way to _push_ some of his Aura into the Dust shards based off Nora's idea from the moment he called forth his Aura?

He's run out of ideas at this point _not_ try it.

Clasping the shard in his hand, he concentrates and switches once more, trying to control his Aura and perhaps push some towards the Dust shard. If he remembers anything at all from Weiss's Dust lessons, it's that Dust requires Aura to function their capabilities and properties. Meaning, in theory, he should be able to move his Aura not around the Dust shard, but inside it if nothing occupies the space inside.

During the struggle to manage his control over Aura, Jaune's only realizing how little control he really has over the power. Lore, while much harder to _mold_ due to the strong gravitational pull and slow movement it has compared to Aura's free power and fast speed, was actually easier to control in hindsight. Jaune could always feel a connection with Lore like Gravity has with other objects, but once he shot a Shooting Star or released any sort of Aura molded attack, all connection was lost as soon as his control slipped.

While with Lore, he could actually regain a connection within a small window of time.

Strange how he doesn't notice these things until he has to confront them?

Struggling with the act, Jaune forces some Aura to his hand, watching the glow surround his palm where the Dust shard reside, but instantly his Lore is on the attack, violently assaulting the lone amount of Aura that hasn't been moved to the respected space. And the pain's great, very great, and Jaune's about to allow the Aura to die out but at the last moment he could feel the presence of another space for the Aura to head before the Lore finishes all the remain energy.

The moment had been small, but Jaune had felt the other region for the briefest of seconds.

And just for a split-second he feels a shimmer of hope, wondering if it really was that easy. After all, wasn't dust counting that simple? While simple, yes, but easy? Absolutely not! The memory of all his Aura training flashes before him as he lifts up his hand to inspect any damage his Lore did. And for the unknown time, he sighed miserably, hating what the pursuit of knowledge led to.

Why must he hurt himself for his pride?

"I hate my life."

Going through the routine again, Jaune constantly forces some of his Aura to stray away from the path, flowing back down to his hand over and over again. And each and every time the Lore is instantly on the attack, mercilessly crushing his Aura before he could properly sense the other region of space. But each and every time he does attempt the movement; his sense of feeling improves a bit.

It's a slow and grueling process, but one had to make sacrifices for the pursuit of science or something along those lines. He wasn't really paying attention that Dust lesson with Weiss that day when she uttered that quote, too preoccupied with the suspicious feeling of a blonde-haired demon attempting to sabotage his sweater when she thought he wasn't looking with a rusty pair of scissors.

Losing the track of time, Jaune spends hours trying to manipulate his Aura into the shard, getting a sense of the other region within the shard now. Turns out the more he concentrated on surrounding the crystal with his Aura rather than trying to push it in makes it far easier to find the path, but there's always something stopping him.

Back to using his Aura, Jaune's starting to feel the effects of Aura exhaustion, feeling less than half his normal reserves on check. That's the major problem of Aura training; he's only got so much before he could call it quits for the day. A shame, really.

Opening up his other palm, Jaune leaned on the table with his head held by his propped up elbow, the shard pressed snugly close to his cheek, staring dead center at his free hand. Just for fun, he creates a Supernova, watching the amazing flow of Aura bending within the center of his palm and then collecting out on the outer edges before expanding out and creating his signature bomb.

Weird how something so amazing is also painstakingly simple to do, but adding Aura to a Dust shard sounds simple in theory, but is practically a death sentence.

Flexing his fingers, Jaune absorbs the Supernova, draining away the energy from his palm. Then creates another, only this time taking his sweet precious time on doing so, for once actually watching the Supernova process happening. Again there's a buildup in the center before Aura surrounds the edges where the sphere is supposed to end and fills up the space with his Aura.

Interested at the display, Jaune glances at the shard pressed against his face and promptly tosses it to his hand, absorbing the Supernova before contact could be made. He's bored, and this should make for an interesting reaction. Sparks always did intrigue him as a child whenever his father sharpened Crocea Mors. More of a guilty hobby really, like for those who write literature for popular TV tropes.

Holding his palm lazily out, Jaune stretches his fingers, wanting to see the sparks fly. Slowly he concentrates on the manipulation required to make a Supernova, feeling his Aura act upon the center of his palm, only this time it never comes and he raises a single brow, wondering what happened to his Supernova.

Did he mess up?

Figuring no one's perfect—which he's an expert on—and everything had been a simple fluke, Jaune wills his Aura to make another Supernova, again surprised when nothing happens. This time he sits up, holding his palm close to inspect anything amiss and tries for a third time. Only be extremely surprised from the bright glow coming from the Dust shard when he feels his third Supernova completely form.

Eyes opened, boredom totally gone, he stands up, unable to take his eyes off the glowing Dust crystal. The sight's too memorizing and his mind feels like it's racing a mile a second, but no clear, cohesive thought make itself known. A memory pops up and he subtly glares at the shard, fighting feint ignorance.

Just like the first time he was messing around with his Aura, perfectly bored, unfocused, and tired, he yet again found some sort of solution to his problem at the terrible cost of having to figure out how it all happened again. Yet it was a cost he was willingly to pay.

Remembering what he did before, Jaune opened up his palm and tried to create a fourth Supernova, feeling the act completed and a bit draining now with his reserves getting far lower, and this time he's not caught off guard from the increase brightness of the shard.

"I did it!" he did a small dance, not caring if anyone saw him. The small glow of the shard only illuminated the room for his impressive moves. "I finally did it! Oh sweet Monty, I finally did it!" Grinning at the shard in his hand, he moved the piece close to his eyes, laughing at the blasted thing. "Oh, you! You don't know how much trouble you've put me through in these few days."

The glow resonates peacefully in the room, mocking him practically.

Enjoying his sweet moment of relief, Jaune frowns at the newest problem he must solve now. "Now... how do I get the Aura out of you?"

Dust and Dust crystals normally react to the presence of Aura from what Weiss told him. But this Dust crystal had Aura within it, not some strange elemental energy trapped within it, begging to be released from an outside source. Not exactly something he could just will, either. Unlike his Aura in his body, Jaune can't seem to get any sort of lock on the Aura trapped within the shard, powerless to feel even the tiniest hint of Aura.

How does one absorb something?

 _Maybe you should try eating it!_

Wanting to ignore the simple idea that Nora gave him earlier, he's almost tempted to until he realizes it had been Nora's simple idea that got him this far, literally. First her Dust counting nonsense, his Lore to Aura switching problem and now _this!_

In some way, shape, and form, it was her nonsense, childlike ideas that got him this far. Sure, all the Aura manipulation and hand-to-hand discoveries comes from his crazy ideas, but she gave him the foundation to start off. Really contradicted their personalities when he really thought about it.

Still... it's worked this far.

Biting the shard for a simple test, nothing happens. He then looks at the glowing gem, shrugging his shoulders at Nora's _simple_ idea, and promptly tosses the entire shard into his mouth and bites down onto the crystal, breaking it into pieces as he munches down before simply swallowing the broken gem, surprised at its unusual brittleness.

It's a highly risky gamble, and he has absolutely no idea on what he's doing or what the consequences could be, but Jaune's certain at least that since it was his Aura that was trapped within the shard, then nothing bad should happen—!

 _Pressure_!

And there it is.

His eyes widen at the feeling of an unfamiliar sensation of a _foreign_ Aura entering his system. Jaune's not sure why the Aura stuck inside the crystal felt so different than his own, maybe it had something to do with the Dust's properties, he didn't know, but what he did know—did feel was the foreign Aura being molded to match his own, slightly recharging some of the Aura he lost when he created the crystal, not fully giving back what he pushed in.

Greedy damn jewel if he ever saw one.

"Whoa!" smiling, he touched his chest, touched his face, and then finally touched his stomach, wondering how that process worked. "That was crazy!"

Just like his ideas.

Looking back jauntily at the remaining bag of white Dust shards, his mood promptly dies when he hears an explosion off in the distance, instantly connecting the dots that Nora's outside destroying poor, defenseless Mother Nature. The Space she's emitting feels hostile and depressing, and as he glares at the bag next to his feet, he's really starting to wonder who the real genius on the team is and how unfair said genius got screwed over when she so desperately wanted the power he had.

It doesn't take a expert to figure out something's wrong with one of his teammates, and that he's partly to blame. He's not that dense anymore.

"I really hate my life..."

...

"I want my own Supernova!"

Nora's jealous. Plain and simple. And she has every right to be, Pyrrha thinks, trying to calm the girl down before she could destroy another helpless tree from her grenade launcher. Eventually she grabs the weapon from her hands, frowning at Nora's hunched shoulder, watery eyes, and unwavering attempt at shooting a weapon that simply wasn't there.

Pyrrha could only guess having seen Jaune practicing with his Aura control probably set the girl off.

She's been really trying to hold it together the passing days, hiding the bouts of jealously well from both the guys, but the very second Jaune said he couldn't help anymore, the feeling of depression most likely started eating away at her.

"Nora... calm down," Pyrrha said softly, grabbing her shoulder in a loving hold. "Jaune's said you've pretty much hit your limit from what he could teach you. There's nothing more he could do."

Anger appears on her face, "He didn't try hard enough!"

"He tried very hard."

"He's just being lazy!"

"No, that's Ren's job, remember."

"Then he doesn't like me!"

"Nora, we both know that's not true."

Every logical answer only seems to push the girl into a deeper state of depression. It's not good for her, but Pyrrha doesn't know how to comfort her anymore, not wanting to resort to lying for nothing ever good comes from that. Trust her; she's learned from experience what lying could accomplish.

Sensing a presence beside her, she looks over to find Ren already passing her, moving up to close to Nora. He's says something she cannot hear and then gently grabs Nora's face as she resists to look up at him. Even then Nora won't look him in the eyes, but Ren rubs away a lone tear, bending down to meet her at eye level, finally getting her to look at him.

It's a bittersweet moment, and Pyrrha wishes to know how Ren could get Nora to so easily calm down.

Deep down Pyrrha could sympathize with her teammates, knowing how tempting that Aura control looked. Although it must hurt Nora on a deeper level since it was her mundane idea that got Jaune his control over Aura in the first place, even if it had all been unintentional. And it takes no genius to notice Nora is completely captivated by the power of Aura, taking each and every chance she could get to watch their leader bend the manifestation of his soul to his will.

In a sense, she feels sorry for her, wishing she could help soothe the pain.

Pyrrha waits for Ren to calm her down before she speaks up, "She's been feeling—!"

"I know..." Ren sighs, letting Nora rest her head on his chest.

Nothing gets past Ren when it comes to Nora. Nothing! He was just waiting for her crack; letting her vent it out so he could quickly do damage control and stop the problem before it could get out of hand. For as long as he could remember, it's always been like that. Probably will always be like that, too.

Watching Ren calm Nora down, Pyrrha's impressed by how easy it is for him; somehow he even added affection to his still stoic tone, inciting a hiccup giggle from Nora from a joke that's too low for her to hear. Nora then looks up to Ren, searching for an answer and he gives it to her with a simple _boop_ on the nose.

It's cute, and Nora thinks so too as she hides her face into his chest.

She mumbles through the fabric, "It's not fair."

Ren holds her with one arm, playing with her orangey locks with the other, "Then maybe you could find a way to make it fair."

She only pushes herself deeper into his chest, "How?"

Messing with one of her unkempt locks of hair, Ren already has an answer prepared in advance, "Try using the control you do have and try to make your very own version of Supernova? Jaune did say you have the best control compared to Pyrrha and me."

She's silent for a moment, hiding her face away from the world. Finally, though, she peers up, wiping her eyes with her arm with a weak smile. "Do you really think I can?"

It's not even a question of faith, "I know you can."

It's a weird thing to see Ren acting so comforting. Pyrrha can say without a doubt she's seen more than a range of emotions come from supposedly passive friend than anyone else besides Nora. One minute he's calm and cool, and the next he's irritated and wiping away chunks of flour off from Nora's guilty face. Now he's all soothing and reassuring, acting very un-Ren like to what everyone else believes.

And when it all comes down to it, he's more than just wrapped around Nora's trigger-happy finger, he's practically her giant, soft teddy bear—eh?! Sloth, he's her very own giant, soft, emotionless sloth.

In fact, Pyrrha Nikos is flat-out envious of her bubbly friend. She's never had a relationship like that before. Not even close. She's still getting use to having friends.

"Hey guys!" they hear Jaune's voice from coming out the cabin, practically sprinting to them with a few glowing Dust shards in his hand.

And Nora's instantly off of Ren, masking her face with an overly joyous grin.

Gotta hand it to her, Nora's can hide emotions better than Jaune and her and it doesn't look like Ren planned to call her out on it. Pyrrha would, but a silent sideways glare from Ren that made Professor Goodwitch seemed cute stopped her cold on her feet.

Sliding up to his teammates, Jaune presents them with a trio of Dust crystals that sent off a calming glow. They all observed the shards with unmatched curiosity while their leader tried to catch his breath, feeling a good amount of Aura exhaustion from prolong use of his Aura.

Finally feeling the air enter his lungs, he proudly showed off the shards, "I've finally found a way to add Aura to the Dust crystals and a way to absorb the Aura!"

The girls looked impressed, but Ren had to be Ren and poke at the soft spots for their fearless leader, "About time, you've been working on that for the better part of three weeks."

Jaune grinned smugly, "Oh, I'm sorry, Ren. How's your Aura training going? Able to _glow_ yet?"

Their ninja's eyes narrowed ever so slightly.

Bastard.

Grabbing one, Pyrrha tilted the rock in her hand, amazed at the warmth it released on the touch. "Do they have a limit on how much they can hold?"

Jaune shrugs, "I don't know? Maybe... I'm not exactly too sure. Each one has about the worth of four Supernovas that much I _can_ tell you."

Pyrrha nodded, knowing now why their leader looked to be dead on his feet. He's running on fumes. Jaune must practically be out of Aura now with stuffing an equivalent of four Supernovas and who knows however many more while inside the cabin.

Holding the shard higher in the air, she looked with one eye from the off glare of the sun. "And how do you absorb the Aura?"

"Oh?" Jaune blinked. "That's easy! You just eat them! Although, that worked for me, and I'm not too sure what would happen if you—Nora! I don't know what that'll do to you if you eat that?!"

Pyrrha never saw Nora snatch the crystal from her hand, only Jaune's frantic warning allowed her to find the source of her stolen gem... right between Nora's teeth. Then her stone became many as Nora immediately crushed and devoured the shard before anyone could stop her.

Pyrrha's not too sure what drove her to do that. Maybe it had to do with her jealously from Jaune's power or encouragement from Ren's words, but what she did know, neither Jaune nor Ren looked too pleased with shoot first and ask questions later action.

The seconds tick on by and no one moves, expecting different reactions to occur from Nora's eating of a shard of Aura. But then her eyes grow wide when a subtle glow shade of snow overcomes her body's outline, slowly turning from ivory to turquoise. During the entire process, Jaune's watching this through Space, noting how her Aura absorbed the large amounts of his Aura, basically devouring the shard from the top of head and all the way down to her stomach.

It's a sight he can calmly say he's never before seen.

And before they could ask how she's feeling, Nora's already jumping on her feet, moving with a vigor that almost puts Ruby's to shame. Every step she takes is an attempt to move faster than the last, unable to have the willpower to properly stand perfectly still.

"Whoa! I feel totally energized like that bunny on the battery commercial!" she grins with no trace of her earlier sadness and Pyrrha knows that smile is genuine. Then without warning, Nora grabbed another one of the Dust shards in a speed that surprised them and ate it away.

The effect is immediate and her Aura actually becomes noticeable for a change. And then she's gone, zipping across the clearing in a never-ending run, talking too fast for even Ren to keep up. All three of them could only watch helplessly from the sidelines

"I think we just discovered Aura overload?" Ren stated.

"Aura overload? And what exactly is that?" Pyrrha asked.

Ren pointed at the energized Nora, "That... is Aura overload."

Running up towards them, Nora slides on the soles of her shoes, leaving a trail of dust in her wake. She's not able to stop and moves in front of Jaune, almost snatching the last shard. But this time he's too fast for her, placing the Dust crystal into his pocked before she could grab it, instead grabbing his arm and shocking him in a painful jolt of electricity.

"Awww!"

"I'm sorry! That was my semblance!" Nora apologizes, now awestruck at the tiny waves of electrical currents running on her hand.

Jaune paused, ignoring the stinging feeling on his forearm, "Your semblance?"

"Yup-yup! I can control electricity and any and all electrical currents!" she explains quickly, _oohing_ and _aahing_ as an electrical current extended from one of her palms to the other.

"... How come you never told me your semblance was to conduct electricity?"

"You never asked, and I've never been able to use it without an outside source! Weird, huh?!" she's still playing with the electricity in her hands.

Ren narrowed his eyes alongside Jaune, yea, definitely weird. Jaune for he's simply seeing Nora's semblance for the first time, for Ren it's weird because Nora shouldn't be able to conduct any sort of electrical current whatsoever. Did the high influx of Aura cause this? Was that the culprit for this innocent crime?

Hmph, obviously.

Playing with her hands and the bolts of static dancing between her fingers, Nora grinned largely, eyes quite literally sparkling with shock. The tiny channel of pink electrical currents in her hands are slowly turning an uncontrollable shade of turquoise, picking up power at an alarming rate. She can practically feel the current bending and shaping to her will as she balled up her fist, yipping for joy at the Aura overload.

 _I know you can._

Losing her smile, she silently gasps at the power building up in her hands, quietly for a moment forcing one of the balls of electrical currents to move solely to one hand, but before she can, the Aura overload is destabilizing and she's losing control over the voltage in her body, eventually finding herself unable to conduct the current anymore to her will.

But if she tries hard enough, really squints her eyes in frustration and brings her shoulders together, she could feel the briefest of sparks resting somewhere between her eyes and right above her nose. It's tiny, weak, and everlasting, but she could feel it, if only for the tiniest of moments, but she knows it's there.

Call it a gut feeling, but Nora has an idea!

It's crazy! And that's why it's so perfect!

Her fearless leader did say she might be the only one capable of controlling Aura, even if it's for a little bit. And he may not be too sure if she could make her own Supernova, but Ren believes in her, and that's all Nora Valkyrie needs!

But if she's ever going to get control over that power, she first needs to be more in tuned with it. And since there's a shortage of electrical currents in the very bland forest, she settles on her other source of power, swaying back and forth at it with her hands messily placed behind her back.

All she's armed with is a childish smile.

"Jaune... can you make me more of those rock Dust thingies? I wanna practice some more with my semblance!"

Pyrrha can't fight the smile on her face when her leader easily hands Nora the remaining Aura shard, agreeing halfheartedly with practical ease even against the obvious fatigue plastered at every inch of his face.

If Jaune Arc could do anything, that was inspire and amend broken feelings, even when it was totally by accident.

...

Later that day, Team JNPR learns two things. One, Jaune can make Aura filled Dust crystals, and two! Turns out too much Aura _can_ be a bad thing. Because for some odd reason, Nora, a few hours later, experienced the same symptoms of Aura exhaustion, completely throwing everyone in a loop when she turned in early for the night, having forced her own legs to drag her weakened body off to bed, utterly burned out.

Ren checked on her a few times before calling it a night as well, and Pyrrha joined soon after, leaving Jaune to his own devices. And he's god-awfully tired as well, but he doesn't plan to crash until he fills a few more Dust shards with his Aura and maybe even try to make a Lore Dust shard.

The Aura part is easy and fast, draining the life out of him in minutes and virtually leaving him a husk of a shell, but when he switches to Lore, there lies the problem. Unlike Aura, Lore had a strong gravitational pull and refused to leave Jaune's body as easily as Aura, only filling the shard with the barest of Lore after a tiring period of two hours of effort. Inside the shard a tiny sphere can be seen, hovering in the dead middle, floating ominously within the crystal. The Dust fragment even has a dark glowing outline like the Aura crystals, but far weaker due to the little amount stored within it and needs to be closely squinted at to see.

Eventually calling it a night with two more Aura shards and barely a Lore shard made, he heads to bed, leaving the two Aura shards on the table for Nora to grab in the morning. He pockets the Lore one, not too sure what would happen if someone was to grab and eat that one, noticing how cold the shard was compared to an Aura crystal.

In the morning Jaune wakes up to Ren cooking, Pyrrha going through the old dictionary at the table, and Nora with her arms out on the table and using her chin to rest on the table as well, looking positively gloomy. There's an Aura of misery floating around her usual bubbly personality, and not even the scent of fresh pancakes seems to lighten her moods.

"Uh... what's wrong with Nora?" he asked, and he receives a grumpy groan from the bomber who moves her hands to her ears, hiding even more of her head away from the sunlight peering through the window.

"Please... stop... talking."

"I think she has a hangover from having too much Aura yesterday?" Pyrrha whispered-yelled, pointing at the barely conscious girl who moans from a headache none of them could imagine.

He tilted his head, "Is that possible?"

"Apparently," Ren finished making the pancakes, sliding a plate up to Nora. "Pancakes are done."

All it takes is one small look and close-up sniff of the delicious aroma of Ren's delicious pancakes to get Nora off the chair in a frantic frenzy with her hands covering her ever expanding mouth and out the door, dry heaving loudly yesterday's dinner for the whole team to hear.

Deathly quiet, Jaune cautiously eyes the Aura shards hanging close by the edge of the table, and he slowly reaches for them, but Nora runs in a second later, grabbing the shards as she slides on the floor with a defeated look on her face. She holds onto the shards for dear life with the strength of a child, unable to stop the shaking of her hands.

"N-No... I need them... for training."

Ren looks ready to intervene, not liking at all the sorry state she's in, but she's begging with her eyes not to. He fights back with a glare of his own, and for a minute, words are not reached but a compromise is made.

"Fine, but only take one at a time." Nora nods weakly, finding her senses coming back into tiptop shape.

"Sooo..." Jaune trails. "Can I have your pancakes?"

 _Bleeeeh_!

...

So for the next couple of days, a pattern takes hold. Jaune makes the Aura shards, Nora eats the Aura shards, and Pyrrha occasionally continues to practice her Aura training with no progress whatsoever and settles to sparring with Jaune and his Excalibur. Funny, it kind of reminded him of the situation he had been in prior to a little under three months ago. Ren is being Ren, and enjoying his break, hardly doing anything called training, using the excuse that having to wield Nora's hammer for sparring class for two weeks was more than enough training.

Jaune Arc couldn't find the will to argue and doubted Ren would follow anyways, leader's orders or not.

So here they are, a week into their break and exploring the forest for fun, needing a break from the sparring and watching Nora glow a shade of turquoise each and every time she ingested an Aura shard. Jaune made sure to make her some this morning, filling a total of three worth the equivalent of three Supernovas and not four for her before venturing out to the forest for some much unneeded sightseeing.

The Lore shard rested peacefully in Ren and his room, under his pillow with a few other Aura crystals that he wanted to test their storing capabilities for. So far he's gotten the Dust crystal to fill up about one fifth of the way, a feat that took too much time and effort if he should say so. Darn thing refused to cooperate. Don't even get him started on the amount of Supernovas stored within the other shards.

Ducking under a branch, Jaune wonders how Nora's doing on her super-secret training.

...

Controlling bouts of electricity between her fingers, Nora feels all rejuvenated with the last shard of Aura still moving through her system, lighting up her life literally. Her body feels all tingly from the spells of currents running through her skin, nearly giving her goose bumps. And she's playing with the sparks in her hand, trying to combine the little Aura control she does have and her semblance together to get her own version of Supernova.

It's very time restraining and she's hardly gotten anywhere in the past two days except for being able to discover that tiny currents of electrical feeds existed throughout her entire body, waiting to be called for! They are especially powerful in her head and heart, zapping all around in boundless wonder.

Focusing her willpower on her hand, she tries to concentrate hard and move the turquoise electrical pulse to her palm, getting only a tiny, tiny spark in the dead center. She's only able to keep it going for about a half a minute, eventually having to watch the spark up and die on her in a mock solute.

It's all very frustrating, and she wonders if this is what her fearless leader went through to create his Supernova. No wonder he spent such a long time in their room, training all alone.

This was hell!

Her leader really was ahead of the curve—prodigy really when it came to Aura control. And he discovered this all on his own?! Even more crazy! He's makes learning all this Aura stuff look so damn easy! She would be so proud if she wasn't so mad and annoyed right now.

Trying harder, Nora sighs at the feeling of the Aura boosts wearing off, almost cutting off her connection to her electrical impulses. In reality, she didn't exactly _need_ the Aura shards to help her maintain a control anymore, but it made it a lot easier to channel and train.

Reaching into her pocket, she panics at the feeling of nothingness, frantically searching all over her body and non-existent pockets for more Aura Dust crystals. The search comes up with nothing, and she panics at the loss of her portable energy source. Now she'll have to wait for them to return from their trip into the forest before she could get more.

It wouldn't be so much a problem if Ren wasn't so darn lazy and a sightseeing type of guy. Who knows how long they're going to take until they can come back. It could be hours... days! They could get lost and run out of food and Nora has a sneaking suspicion that Pyrrha's the cannibalism type! Her gut says so!

Scratching her head and pushing back the ideas for a later blockbuster film, she checked her pockets once more, finding no Dust shard and then looked over to the cabin, wondering if Jaune's stashed away anymore for himself. Sounds like something he would do. That's what Ren does with those nasty health bars of his. Kind of a dumb idea. It's not like anyone's planning on stealing them.

"I bet Jaune has some lying around..."

Acting sneaky, Nora tiptoed over to the cabin, making spy sounds as she lied flatly on the wall, sliding down the cabin's wooden exterior. Her eyes moved back and forth between the forest and the door before sliding in with a quick slam of the door. She can't very well just let anyone see her take Jaune's personal stash of Aura shards—if they exist—she'll blame it on the ghost if anyone dares to ask any questions. It's foolproof!

Reaching the inside, she made her way to the guy's room, spotting Jaune's bed at the far corner since Ren's was always the clean one. In the clear, Nora spots a light glow coming from underneath Jaune's pillow from the windowless darkness of the room, and grins in delight. No one could stop her now!

Taking a few steps forward, she unearths the treasure hidden beneath Jaune's pillow, positively glowing from her the glow of the jackpot! And all it took was to sneak in while none of her team was around to search the room and find them.

... And no! She doesn't have a problem! Shut up!

Reaching for a shard, she grabs a couple, and then leans back with her foot digging into the wooden floor. A very old wooden floor that—?!

 _Creak_!

"I surrender!"

She screams with her arms instantly up, the shards the only proof of her guilty crime firmly held between her shamefaced fingers. Seconds tick by and no speaks up and she hesitantly turns around to see no one at the door, waiting with a disapprovingly look. The floor then creaks and she moves around, alerting her to the hero that caught her.

"Oh?" her cheeks flushed at the embarrassing moment, glad no one was around to catch her in the act. "I think it's time for me to go?"

Without even glimpsing, she reaches for one more shard, unknowingly grabbing the Lore Dust crystal instead of an Aura one. Nora can't even feel the difference of temperatures between the two, having wedged all the rocks into one hand. And then she's out of the room, leaving no evidence behind except for the obvious _who else but Nora_ option to who stole Jaune's Aura shards.

But she'll cross that bridge when the time comes, already thinking of descriptions for a thieving ghost.

Reaching the clearing, Nora grins at a successful ninja job well done, holding the crystals up high in the air in a perfectly angled sun glare. Then deprived of any concern, she tossed the first shard into her mouth joyfully, not noticing the ominous dark glow the gemstone had or the unnatural coldness that seeped out of it. All she does know is that the shard lands between her teeth before she bites down hard.

...

Bored and dodging a branch Pyrrha let go of too early—for the fifth time this hour alone—Jaune has settled to practice his Lore's control and speed, thus he created a single Gravity to manipulate to follow him around the forest. He does this far away from both Pyrrha and Ren, making sure the Lore sphere is as far away as possible from them without his control slipping. He makes sure through Space that their Aura was fine, staying back if he had to. And they're both grateful and worried that Jaune was getting too use to the dark power. Especially since they now know it's essentially the number one enemy to all Aura users.

Controlling the orb, Jaune looked back at the sphere following him, wondering about the stuff he's learned about both Aura and Lore.

Things like how Aura's fast and hot... while Lore is slow and cold. Or maybe how they're both are dangerous in their own special way. Though now if Jaune thinks about it, he doesn't see how Lore could be dangerous to a Grimm. They don't have Aura to begin with. Kind of dampens his mood a lot, failing to see any practical use of Lore outside of looking cool and messing with the fundamentals of physics or fighting rouge Hunters.

Looks like Ren's idea to control the gravity around him is looking better by the second.

Speaking of the enemies of mankind, Jaune stops to look around, "You know, I've just noticed we haven't seen any Grimm around since we got here."

Ren stops, thinking it over, "Well humans don't normally venture this far into the forest. They probably avoid this area because there's nothing to hunt and no surge of negative emotions to track."

"I wouldn't expect for Grimm to act like that," Pyrrha said.

Remembering his encounter with the Alpha Beowolf, Jaune adds his own interesting input, "Actually... you'd be surprised at what a Grimm will do if you leave them alone after proving you're the stronger one. They'll back off."

"Really?" Ren asked.

Nodding, he remembered how after defeating the stronger Death Stalker, the Alpha Beowolf was hesitant to attack. "Well, at least the Beowolves backed off after I took down the Death Stalker. It was the leader, mostly. Kept the younger ones from charging at me."

Ren grabbed the side of a tree, clutching the bark tightly, "So what happened? Did you finish them off anyways?"

"No," he answered honestly, actually smiling at the encounter now. That Alpha kind of reminded him of, well, himself. "I left them alone and they never tried to do anything. I'm still surprised actually. Kind of makes you wonder, huh? What else would a Grimm do if you spare it..."

Resting on the tree, Ren thought over the words, surprised at what he's been taught about Grimm in Professor Port's class not quite matching up. Grimm were believed to attack regardless of the situation, dire or not. Kind of throws a wrench in the whole enemies of humanity type of thing when mercy is shown when mercy is given scenario.

Taking Ren's silence as another one of his quiet thinking moments, Jaune strives forward, wishing for something to end this hike. Anything would do at this point. He's just sorely anxious to get something done on his Lore control, meanwhile, said Lore sphere hangs lazily behind, picking up poor twigs and leaves that have gotten trapped by its gravity pull.

Oh well, tough luck for him.

Almost stepping on some poor, defenseless sunflower, Jaune's foot barely touches the petals before—?!

 _Pressure_!

Eyes widening, he moves his foot back, looking over his shoulder in complete shock. That pressure... it felt like the power of Lore, but in a real nasty way? Almost like it was violent and downright hateful, lacking any sense of direction or control, similar to his, but just beyond cruel... but what was even worst about it... worst than that...

"What is it?" Ren asked, body stiffening at his leader's sudden intensity.

Narrowing his eyes, Jaune turns around and searches for the power source and a familiar Space and _Aura_ enters his sense of area, but only because it's mixed with the power of Lore and feels almost corrupted. Unsure what to do, Jaune absorbs Gravity and switches back to his Aura and instantly feels Nora's Aura on the rise, fighting back a force of pressure that seemed to be winning.

Pyrrha grabbed his shoulder, "Jaune? What's wrong?"

Suddenly, Jaune feels Nora's Space lower significantly.

"Nora's in trouble!"

...

Running through the forest in a panic, Jaune, Pyrrha, and Ren enter the clearing a few minutes later to spot a prone Nora with her weapon laid forgotten on the floor. From the distance they could see her breathing jagged and uneven and Jaune could see her Aura fighting back an invisible force.

"Nora!" Ren moves at a speed faster than they could ever hope to achieve.

Running up to a lying Nora, he quickly slid down onto the grass, placing her head on his lap immediately. He really didn't like the way her chest kept rising and falling at an alarming rate, and her gasping did horrible things to his insides. For the first time ever, Jaune and Pyrrha saw a general look of panic and absolute worry on his face, grimacing at the tense marks running down his cheeks.

Nora can barely tilt her head, sounding weaker than ever thought possible, "... Ren?"

"Hang on! You're going to be alright!"

"... It hurts." Ren tenses as she coughs up blood. He never tenses. It only gets harder as a path of blood trails down from her mouth, "Ren," _hiccup_ , "make the pain go away... P-Please."

Her spark wavered and her lips parted tiredly. The shine in her eyes dulled coldly, robbing her vibrant color, and she could barely see past her half-lidded stare, losing the outline of her friends to unrecognizable blobs where her vision hadn't yet been taken over by the cold darkness. Every few seconds a exhausted hiccup escaped her frantic body. It hurt, it hurt everywhere. It hurt on a level she didn't even think possible, pushing her close to the edge of insanity only to hang on for Ren's sake. She even thought about crying.

Crying?

When was the last time she truly cried? Truly allowed her emotional mask to finally break?

It's been so long.

Not knowing what to do, Jaune pauses and thinks about the pressure he felt from earlier in his Lore form. He quickly switches and could only stare helplessly at Nora's Aura fighting back what he notes as Lore instead of an invisible force around her head region. Every aspect of her turquoise Aura fought valiantly against the Lore, like a nasty disease. Unlike his Aura however, hers didn't seem able to push or destroy the Lore instantaneously, having to use every ounce available.

Hers wasn't as strong as his.

 _Pressure_!

Narrowing his eyes, Jaune's frowned heatedly and pushed aside the thought of where the Lore came from for now, finally—at the damn worst possible moment—figuring out why he couldn't feel the Space of any of his teammates while using Lore. Even now, he could only feel the Lore coming from Nora, devastating every inch of her fragile body. See her Aura fighting a losing battle, but not _feel_ it.

In a way, it's Space, but a deeper or outer version. In reality it mattered not. He felt an _Outer_ Space surrounding him and his team for lack of a better word.

 _Pressure_!

Swiftly turning around, Jaune gritted his teeth at the pairs of red eyes glaring from through the sheer darkness of the forest ring, growling a familiar and frightening sound that he's seems to have forgotten could be so damn terrifying.

There's a reason he couldn't feel _Aura_.

"... You've gotta be kidding me!"

* * *

 **Author Notes:** Edited **11/6/2016**


	12. Iron

**Disclaimer:** I own nothing of RWBY.

* * *

 **Iron**

 **By: Imyoshi**

Why now?

Of all the worst times!

Why did it have to be now?!

Damn his luck—damn it to hell!

Feeling the Outer Space around them and on Nora's body intensify in pressure, Jaune Arc has a pretty damn good idea why the Grimm showed up now of all times. The Lore. Plain and simple! Nora's Aura being destroyed by the Lore must act as a _beacon_ or _signal_ for all the Grimm around them. Plus with their out-of-control emotions, it takes no Dust scientist to figure out why this was happening.

Forced to forget about many unanswered question for now, Jaune shifts his Lore to Aura, quickly holding his hand out as the hordes of catlike Grimm started slowly stepping out of the forest, rather than running wildly like he would come to expect. It's only until a rather vicious looking lion Grimm pounces out, does Jaune note the heavy amount of bone platting on all the Grimm slowly emerging with little splotches of black fur.

Suddenly, everything becomes dangerously clear as the Mountain Lion Grimm—known better as a Leo from Professor Port's extravagant tales—charges at him with others not too far behind!

No humans ever venture out this far! There's no negativity to be sensed. So the Grimm surrounding the vast region just daze around and grow older, stronger, and wiser! Who knows how many powerful Grimm are around the area! Compared to initiation... this was going to be a living nightmare.

"Pyrrha!" Jaune shouts, pulling her away from Nora's side cautiously. He doesn't need to say anymore for her to get the hint, already grabbing Crocea Mors and preparing for battle. He does the same, concentrating on his Aura, "Atone, Excalibur!"

The Aura sword materialized in his hands, and for a split moment, Jaune considers calling for Ren, but he's not too sure if the ninja in their team would even hear his pleas. Poor Ren looks too fixated and trapped on the panting Nora. He probably can't even hear the Grimm closing in on their location.

"Ren! Ren!" no response.

Damn it, of all times for Ren to lose his cool!

Looks like it's defensive tactics for now.

Filling three Aura sphere into his palm, Jaune gets into a battle stance with Excalibur close to his chest in a horizontal angle. Pyrrha's right beside him, holding his family's weapon and shield better than he ever could. He could even see her—through Space—using her semblance on the weapons, coating them in a layer of energy alongside her metal outfit. Perfect.

Meeting the eyes of the first Lion Grimm lunging at them, Jaune aims almost pointblank for the boneless stomach and fires. "Soar, Shooting Star!"

The sphere rips right through the body of the first Grimm and crashes headfirst into another unfortunate Leo, exploding on impact when the orb clashes against the bone platting on its upper torso, killing the second Grimm in the process and damaging part of the other lions in the process. Nonetheless, that does nothing to the sheer numbers charging at them, and Jaune aims again, firing and easily hitting a target in the mass of darkness.

"We need to keep them away from Nora!" Pyrrha nods, knowing that order took priority over everything else.

She quickly brings up her shield to intercept a slash before sliding around the Grimm's blind spot and thus digging Crocea Mors deep into the body. Pyrrha gets no chance to check if the cut killed the Grimm, already countering another pounce heading for her. Jaune, on the other hand, brings up Excalibur to stop a Lion from biting down on him as he crashes his Supernova onto another Lion that tried to prey on him while he was distracted. Excalibur then begins to dig into the jaw of the Grimm holding him down, cleanly sliding into the mouth before decapitation takes place.

Powerless to rest, Jaune dodges a lunge and has to quickly duck to avoid a second. He brings up Excalibur to cut off the paws of the third trying the same tactics, rendering it to collapse on its own weight with a burning sensation, then he turns around and meets the other two Grimm head-on, quickly transforming Excalibur into a Supernova with his other hand creating a second. And Twin Supernovas collide with the Leo's jaws, breaking bone and propelling them across the clearing into others of their pride, but the numbers are still strong and determined to rip their throats.

Jaune fights the urge to rest, feeling his Aura draining much heavier considering he made Aura shards that morning. He can't just keeping wasting Aura like this! But all his Aura techniques require a fix amount of Aura to expend, except for Excalibur. There's just too many of them. If only he could find a way to quickly cut down their size without wasting too much Aura!

Jumping back from a crater created paw swipe, he quickly looks over to his partner, and sees her deliver an semblance enhanced kick to a Lion's jaw, breaking teeth while tossing Crocea Mors right at another Leo's abdominal while in midair. She then uses the shield to block another swipe and uses her foot still connect to the lion's jaw and propels herself up in the air to charge downward and cut the Grimm's head off with the shield with a push from her semblance.

It's kind of funny when he looks at it, Pyrrha seems to be in perfect sync when it came to fighting hordes of lions. Almost as if fighting Leos was a past calling of hers and she was heeding the call to her utmost abilities.

Interesting to say the least.

Pulled back into his own fight—or risk getting his shoulder bitten—Jaune brings up Excalibur to stop the Grimm's claws from digging into his skin, but the weight is something his muscles stress against. He then uses his leg to push the Leo back, barely dodging the tackle from the side and then countering with a slash to the Grimm's stomach, taking that moment of distraction to distant himself from the growing number of opponents.

"This isn't working!" he yells to no one. Pyrrha's occupied, Ren's distracted, Nora's down, and the numbers weren't looking so good. Not good at all.

Blocking a bite with locking Excalibur, Jaune can't move fast enough to avoid a claw swipe right for his chest from a second Lion Grimm, forced to maneuver back and dodge the last attempt of his life. Luckily his Aura took the blunt of the damage, but he still felt the sting of the sharpen claws dig partially into his skin. The pain enough numbed to the point of hot. And he's not too happy about his current Aura reserves

Seeing more Leos focus onto a center, he risks running away from the still prone Nora and restless Ren, towards Pyrrha with a quick plan, "Pyrrha! Launch me up! Now!"

Hearing her leader's orders, she quickly sidesteps an attack and brings Crocea Mors down onto the Leo's palm before kicking it away and catching Jaune with his shield. Using her semblance to add a little extra oomph to the launch, she pushes him up and watches him glow brightly for a moment as he holds out both his hands towards the centers of the pride of Leos.

Creating a few Aura spheres, Jaune absorbed them into his palm and rained down straightforwardly into the pride of lion Grimms, scattering them apart and doing some untold amount of injury from the collateral damage of multiple Shooting Stars crashing down onto the battlefield.

But it's not enough.

The monsters get hurt, but not enough to kill them—to finish them!

Falling back down, Jaune feels his Aura reserves at an all-time low, maybe just enough for one or two Supernovas or Shooting Stars and barely enough to keep his sword maintained. If only he could find a way to do some more damage before the Grimm could properly scatter and protect their weak points, but he's at a loss for now. Two Hunters-in-Training versus a pride of advanced Leos was basically suicide. Plus, he has a lot of wounds on multiple parts of his body from the gash marks.

Looking down, he sees his partner avoid a swipe to the head, barely, only leaving a small trail of blood from her forehead where the claw cut. She then sweeps Crocea Mors on the floor, drawing a small amount of dust to not only shield herself, but blind the surrounding Lions, creating openings long enough to strike their soft spots.

A sound tactic and strategy, such a damn shame it can't hit all the—?!

Wait a damn minute!

Almost reaching the floor and seeing the Leos close in on Ren and Nora, Jaune gets another crazy idea of his, and creates a Supernova in his hand, condensing the sphere tightly into a smaller shape. He presses the Aura tight, using his utmost control before slowly allowing the control to completely slip.

Tossing the orb up into the air, Jaune lands and dashes forward with his arms out towards the advancing pride, "Pyrrha, close your eyes!" She does, and the orb of Aura breaks apart, "Illuminate... Quasar!"

Even with her eyes closed, Pyrrha can still see the sudden brightness penetrating the darkness she's created for herself. There's a familiar warmth surrounding her, and in the background, she can hear her leader running off with the sounds of confused Grimm falling to his surprise attack. And after a few seconds of waiting, she opens her eyes slightly, barely able to see a dark silhouette of her leader running and cutting in the distant.

But when she finally opens her eyes a tad more, they widen instantly in surprise, ignoring the piercing brightness for the time being.

There her leader was, hacking and slashing Grimm left and right—with two Aura swords!

And none of the Leos could do anything to stop it, except growl in agony as Jaune skewered them in the lasting brightness, completely unaffected by his Aura technique's immense brightness. And those who he couldn't kill immediately, he impaled their legs, effectively downing them from the fight, too preoccupied with the lasting pain that came from being stabbed with Excalibur.

And she should know, she's taken a cut from that darn Aura blade. That darn swords burns like hell.

He's nowhere near proficient with his left land—that much was obvious with little to no practice—but as long as the Grimm can't react to a hidden stab to the gut or head, then it matters not. Dead was dead.

Having to shield her eyes away now from the burning sensation building in her eyes, Pyrrha can't help but smile as her leader killed a significant amount of the pride, no longer needing to worry about his defense in an all-out assault that none of the Leos could properly guard or retaliate against. And Pyrrha smiles softly as Jaune cuts a Leo in two.

He's come so far from the awkward knight that she pinned to a tree. Now he's a brilliant knight who's still a touch awkward, but one worthy in her humble and perhaps bias opinion, staying as their team leader in Beacon Academy. Screw what others thought! She believes in her F _earless_ Leader. Just look at that air of confidence and glare of determination of his!

Seeing the blinding light starting to shimmer out, everyone's outline becomes less murky and the Grimm are starting to respond as well, shaking their heads to sway away the blurry images and hindrance Jaune's attack has created. Pyrrha uses the small opening and lunges forwards, taking out a few more Leos before they could fully grasp the situation. By the time one of them does, Pyrrha's foot has kicked one at a group of them, breaking them apart enough for her to finish off a few before having to retreat from a sloppy paw swipe to her stomach.

Counting the remaining numbers, Pyrrha won't fight off the courageous smile spreading across her face at the remaining few lingering still, tightening her hold on Crocea Mors as Jaune moves forward along beside her. He dashes headfirst, catching a Leo's attempt of biting him with Excalibur as Pyrrha dives forward to slide underneath Jaune's feet and strikes its stomach and roll out to see another Leo roaring at her from above, only to see Jaune puncture Excalibur right through the small opening on its head.

 _Now_ _this_ , she grins with adrenaline filled excitement, _is how partners should fight_!

Thinking of partners, Pyrrha spares a quick glance to her other friends, worrying deeply for them before she's force back to the fight. She has to bet on Ren to keep Nora going until they're done here.

...

"Nora! Stay with me!"

Lie Ren futilely attempts to keep his childhood friend awake, but each word only seems to allow the darkness to take hold of her vision, obscuring everything and anything for Nora to see. The pain she felt earlier had started to dull minutes ago, and all that was left was some gnawing feeling in the pit of her stomach. It almost hurt to feel so empty inside.

Like a restless hunger that never stopped consuming her soul, Nora wanted the feeling to go away and never come back. Childish thinking maybe, but she's out of alternatives at this point, only having Ren's panic voice to go on anymore. She can't even remember the last time Ren had been so broken up before.

Finally the darkness is taking hold of her, and she can feel her eyes begin to close.

"Wake up, Nora!"

 _Ren? Is that you? I'm so tired._

"Wake up!"

 _Can't. Want to sleep._

"Wake... up!"

 _Goodnight... Ren._

"Please... d-don't leave me... your all that I have left."

 _Sweet dreams._

Grabbing her freezing hand, Ren grits his teeth painfully at the almost nonexistent pulse Nora had, allowing an actual tear to escape his breaking mask for the first time in years. More soon follow after, and he's having an impossible task at holding himself together even more so when Nora's eyes finally close to the world around her.

Hiding his pain within his hand, Ren sadly peers through his fingers, and his pink eyes illuminate a soft glow inside the darkness of his palm.

"... I don't know what to do."

A tear of Ren's lands on Nora's cheek as her heart stops, and Jaune's the first to react, having lost the feel of Nora's Space the moment her Aura faded away. Fortunately, there only seemed to be a few Leos left, and Pyrrha didn't seem to have a problem finishing them off, allowing Jaune to stop and turn around to glare at Nora's static body.

His eyes narrow painfully as he wills away his swords and switches from Aura to Lore, no longer able to sense any lingering forms of Lore anymore. Seems without any Aura to devour, the Lore simply dies out. Assuming it's not hiding in a place he can't see. But there's no time to second guess himself!

Nora's in trouble.

Coming back to his Aura, Jaune only takes a few steps forward until an unnerving growl catches him off-guard. He turns around to quickly spot a Leo far larger and more bone platted than the ones Pyrrha and he fought. Its eyes showed ancient wisdom, and its movements proved to be subtle and deadly from the cautious steps it takes out from outside the depths of the forest.

Jaune can't pin the name correctly of this level of Leo from Professor Port's lessons, but Pyrrha beats him to it.

"It's a... Monarch Leo," she awes, actually shaking a tiny bit in fear. And without so much as a warning, the Monarch Leo went from waiting to lunging at Jaune's partner in an impressive display of speed.

Pyrrha hardly has time to lift up her shield before the Grimm crashes headfirst into her, sending Jaune's partner clear across the clearing. Seconds later, she barely manages to avoid a deadly pounce that shook the foundation of the ground around her, holding Crocea Mors protectively over her tired body as the Monarch Leo stalked its weary prey.

Scowling at the choices given to him, Jaune looks back over to the Aura depleted Nora and saw the Aura shards near Ren, and for a split moment, he could faintly see a thin glow of turquoise Aura around Nora's chest. It's light and extremely faint to the point he can't even _feel_ it. In all honesty, he might just be imagining the near faint subtle glow, but if there's ever a time to hope, then now would have to be the time.

"Ren!" Jaune yells from across the clearing, forging Excalibur to aid Pyrrha. "Her Aura's weak! Feed her some of the Aura shards! Hurry!" Anything at this point to keep her Aura alive.

It's the first words Ren actually hears since the whole ordeal started, and he stumbles to search and find the shards his leader shouted, clinging desperately to a silver lining of hope. Ultimately he finds them and grasped them tightly in one hand, using the other to partly open Nora's mouth and edge her head upwards. Then he crushes the brittle Aura shards in his hand, breaking them into tiny pieces before carefully, but quickly, forcing Nora's throat to ingest some.

And now Lie Ren hopes to Monty that the Aura shards help.

 _ **Spark**_!

No one knew this about Aura, not even Jaune Arc and all his Aura wisdom, but many assume that once you're on the edge of death, your Aura control starts to slip and you lose the power to stay alive. Even more so when Death has finally claim the last remaining breath of the poor soul.

That couldn't be farther from the truth. When you're are practically on Death's door, your Aura clings tighter to the body that ever before, fighting to keep the body going and soul alive. A person's Aura control doesn't get weaker the closer they walk towards the light... it gets stronger the closer they reach towards the light. A last ditch attempt at life before their spark is wiped out forever.

Aura is light! It's warmth! The very manifestation of one's soul! There's no reason for being closer to your soul to weaken such power.

But sadly, everything depends on the person and their sheer will and condition.

Some bodies were just too far gone for Aura to simply help... other times their will have been broken too much to make a difference if the body doesn't want to cling to life anymore. The matters are only worse if Lore's negative properties are applied to the issue.

But when it came down to it—really came down to it! All someone needed to keep going was a tiny little—!

 _ **Spark**_!

Jaune suddenly paused for a moment to feel a tiny amount of pressure coming Nora's Space, and he's hit with a tail swipe from the Monarch Leo for his slip up, hitting him up to a nearby tree that broke from the impact. Fortunately, his Aura softened the blow, but the Arc felt only enough Aura to keep Excalibur going—and that's all!

There was absolutely no Aura leftover to act as a shield to protect him anymore. No more to give his muscles a boost or his reflexes the edge he needed. Only enough to keep him moving at the same level he first had when he came to Beacon Academy.

And the motion gave way to many sensations. Primary fear. Plenty of it. But fear was just another word for motivation. And Jaune Arc had plenty of that as well.

Struggling to get up, he tiredly looked up from his position, having to move away some broken branches when he spots Pyrrha taking a nasty hit to her ribs from the Monarch Leo's claw swipe. And from the nasty looks of it, Pyrrha didn't seem capable of dodging the next claw coming down at her from above, too exhausted and hurt from the strain of fighting a pride of Grimm.

Using Excalibur to get up, Jaune fought through the pain and dashed forward, narrowly pushing Pyrrha away, and taking the full force of the attack for her!

"Jaune!"

He ignored Pyrrha's cry to use his free hand and bring up Excalibur to rest heroically between the teeth of Monarch Leo trying to rip his face off in a power struggle he's sure to lose. It's a fight of dominant wills, and Jaune's giving it his all, purely trusting on his Aura blade to keep death at bay. The rest of his body was currently being pressed down by the Grimm's overly sized paw to be any use, even getting damaged from the digging of some of the bone platting and sharp claws into Jaune's skin.

Pyrrha tried to get up to help, but her sides hurt too much to move, and Crocea Mors fell out of her hand the minute Jaune pushes her away. Even worst, she's bleeding from her forehead and forearms, slowly getting covered in an array of crimson. And Ren's busy trying to force Nora's body to ingest the Aura shards to aid Jaune.

Pyrrha's... never felt so helpless before. Even more so when the Monarch Leo raised its other paw, preparing to strike her partner, "Jaune!"

Remembering a similar situation he was in with an angry Death Stalker, Jaune ponders quickly on what to do, thinking of a way to connect a solid hit in the next few seconds. Creating Shooting Star would be beneficial at this current pointblank range, but the time to will Excalibur into ammunition would take far too long, and he seriously doubts Lore's going to save his butt a second time. Plus the jaws of Monarch Leo would probably tear his arm to shreds when he willed Excalibur to an Aura sphere—?!

Eyes widening, Jaune smirked confidently for a moment before glaring at the deep red eyes staring back at him.

All or nothing now!

Willing away Excalibur, the Monarch Leo's mouth instantly takes hold of Jaune's entire right arm with no resisting force holding it back and he has to ignore the blinding pain, drops of blood, and Pyrrha's cries for his name to solely concentrate on the act of commanding his Aura to bend to his will.

"Burst, Supernova!"

It's an odd feeling... feeling the ripping of shreds of a Grimm's inner intestines from an Aura powered bomb. Particularly when so up close and personal to see the actions take place. But Team JNPR's leader has dealt with creating and forging weapons from the manifestation of his soul, discovering the secrets of Aura, one-sided rivalries with hot-blooded blondes, and even living in the same room with a Nora Valkyrie.

This wasn't so crazy.

Amazed at Jaune's display of power that ripped to shreds the Monarch Leo's insides, Pyrrha barely has time to register a lone Leo coming right for her, feeling her breath wedged deep in her lungs when it pounces right at her barely kneeling form.

She has neither weapon nor shield to aid her, and her vision is starting to weaken from the strain on her body from Aura exhaustion. Little by little, the distance closes between them, and Pyrrha's instincts hone on a nearby metal substance for her semblance to grab. Only strange thing about it, it felt like it was all around her skin and she didn't even notice the subtle glow coming from body. But what she did know, her life was on the line, and Pyrrha actually ignored the cliché life flashing before her eyes images in front of her, and reached out for the tiny numerous bits of iron she felt all over her.

 _ **Spark**_!

Driven on the will to live, Pyrrha forced her semblance to react and moved her arm across her vision and the nearby iron reacted... rising to strike the incoming Leo with a torrent of sharpen blood that dripped from her forearm. Thus instantly killing the Grimm from the sharpen blood, preventing her death and allowing her adrenaline to finally die down, which led to the controlled blood to fall apart and splash carelessly on the floor.

The cereal girl doesn't even get a chance to study on what just happened, too busy hearing and watching the Monarch Leo across the clearing break apart from the sudden burst of Aura. Then her eyes land on her leader who is breathing heavily from what she can guess is a case of extreme Aura exhaustion. And knowing his issue with Aura, he's in serious danger.

Still, she smiles wistfully at his sudden laugh and attempt to rest on his undamaged arm. The victory isn't missed on her.

They won the fight—against all odds—so the blood issue could wait for later.

Struggling to get up, she makes her way over to him with a small hitch in her step, not even bothering to grab Crocea Mors from the floor or the shield, knowing she hadn't the strength to even hold the sword up. Less alone both the weapons. Her legs alone felt like Red Sap. Sticky, gooey, Red Sap.

There's irony somewhere in there with her drenched in blood.

She finally makes her ways towards Jaune, finding him on both his knees away from her, using one arm to keep himself steady as his other arm rested painfully on the grass, supporting his weight. He's coughing, clearly out of breath. Then he spits out some blood, trying for the life of him to stop.

He tries to lift his head, finding that movement too much to handle and instead tries to even his hazard breathing. Jaune Arc has never felt this before. He's got zero Aura left. Zero! Nothing! Never before has he hit zero before. Every other time he was close to Aura exhaustion, he always had a tiny insignificant amount to keep him afloat.

Not this time.

It felt so cold around his body. Colder than even Lore makes him feel. And scarcely empty inside.

So this was what zero Aura felt like? Jaune already knows he doesn't want to feel this helpless ever again. It's terrifying! The feeling of being unable to even stand sends an indescribable chill down his spine.

Wanting any other feeling to fill this emptiness inside of him, Jaune reaches out for his Lore, desperately yet hesitantly pulling the dark power to comfort his body in a sea ice. Anything was better than this hollow feeling inside. And it's an unusual slow process for some odd reason, but the Lore finally reaches him and he can feel his muscles begin to strengthen from the feeling of power, but his wounds refuse to heal.

Strange? How come he's never noticed that Lore doesn't seem to heal wounds? That's oddly ironic and appropriate considering Lore was an enemy to Aura. Makes sense that some things Aura did, Lore did not. Healing must be one of those things while increased strength, speed, and reflexes applied to both powers.

Although he prefers that wasn't the case with his wounds needing tending to for the blood loss, because having practically all his Lore would mean nothing if his wounds slowed him down still in a fight. Such is the burdens of power he suppose. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Feeling his lungs working again, Jaune can finally hear Pyrrha behind him, talking in confidence. "Jaune, we did—?!"

 _Pressure!_

...

Moments earlier, Ren finishes forcing the Aura shards down Nora's throat after ignoring the blinding light behind him, silently hoping the subtle white glow restarts her light. He can feel a small warmth come from the Aura of the shards faintly spreading throughout her body from the light grip with her hand.

What he can't see is the Aura from the shards centering around that tiny spark that still lingers from her soul's last attempt at survival. He can't see how her own aura glow from Death's experience, and he can't see the Aura jump starting that tiny spark of turquoise Aura.

He can't see none of that.

But Nora Valkyrie can definitely _feel_ something once more.

She can feel the warmth of someone's tears on her face again. Feel a cool breeze blowing through her hair. And even feel someone's hand holding hers that seemed oddly familiar to her. Calling her! Pleading with her to find her way back from this cold maze she seems to be deeply lost in. But she's not sure she can find her way out. Everything's so dark. So cold and lonely. So... distant.

She's not even sure what happened to her, anymore.

But she is sure someone is shaking while holding her hand. Almost like they were happy?

And in her distant mind, Nora Valkyrie was dead right. Lie Ren couldn't stop shaking from the intense feeling bubbling up inside, threatening to burst at any given second. The muscles in his face move on overpowered instinct, and he doesn't care. Doesn't care that he might be smiling a foolish smile that rivaled even his childhood friend's. Because, right now, at this very painstaking moment, he was only focused on the light bumps coming from her wrist.

It's a faint heartbeat, ghostly even, but Ren's just damn happy it's there.

"Please wake up, Nora," he pleads, soothingly touching her cheek. "Please."

The words hardly reach Nora through the murkiness of her mind, but she somehow depicts the message even in her absent thoughts, wondering faintly if she truly could.

 _Do you really think I can?_

It's not even a question of faith.

 _I know you can._

 _ **Spark**_!

In the off distance, within the cold darkness, Nora can see a shade of turquoise Aura glow harmlessly, lighting her entire body with a blanket of warmth. The glow begins to grow brighter, and before she even knows it, her eyes are barely opening to a distraught Ren hovering over her with a smile she hasn't seen since they were children.

And the touching moment would make her smile, but she's too tired to move any more than her eyelids, already welcoming back the urge to sleep.

Luckily for her, Ren gently lifted her head towards his chest, and Nora welcomes the strong heartbeat beating against his chest. It's soothing and pleasant to listen to, and she finds an untold amount of joy radiating from deep inside her.

"I'm so glad you're alive." Nora hears Ren say, silently wondering what happened to her. She can't really remember, and she really wants to, but can't. Her mind's too fuzzy right now, and she feels so weak.

A tiny jolt in her chest is the only other thing she can sort of feel, but it's disorienting and lost to her. Perhaps another time she'll search for that odd spark, but for now, sleep seems like the perfect choice. Simple and pleasing, just like the way Ren likes to sleep.

Far away, Nora barely hears in the off distance an explosion that echoed vibrations on the very floor itself. She might've heard one of her Fearless Leader's famous catchphrases—Jaune-Jaune's always silly with those—and Nora tries to see what all the commotion is about, ignoring the lure of sleep had on her.

Just for the time being.

"Jaune, we did—?!"

...

 _Pressure_!

Still coughing up blood, Jaune's eyes widen as he _gasps_ , feeling an Outer Space far greater than all the Leos from before. He desperately turns his head around against the agonizing pain in his body, just in time to see a shadow of a large humanoid shaped Grimm standing cautiously behind Pyrrha, even taller than the Monarch Leo and obscuring the light from the sun.

"Pyrrha!" Jaune yells, finding the action terribly draining even with Lore. "Turn around!"

Pyrrha's body trembled and her happy smile is momentarily frozen, "Huh?"

Cupping its massively long and powerful arms together, the monstrous Grimm quickly slides them across the air to land on a barely aware human; hitting her with unnaturally powerful strength that others pale to comprehend on the female's unguarded and already damaged mid-torso.

 _Crack_!

There's a distinct crunch sound from the impact, and the Grimm can feel its hands bending the unusual armor coloring to its will and fracturing bones, carelessly sending the human flying across the clearing towards the other two humans. A crash later, dust starts to fly outward from uproar, and the other male human releasing negative emotions noted its kind peril before looking over its shoulder to stare at it.

Indolently tilting its head at the human, the Grimm looks away to peer down at the other male human kneeling in front of it with its emotions scattered all over the place. At least... the Grimm thought it was a human. It wasn't too sure with the human radiating the same power as their own kind. Even the absence of Aura tricked the creature for a momentarily lapse of judgment before observing the way the human cautiously stood up and guarded the others, and remembering the strong presences of Aura only moments ago far stronger than it's ever felt before.

Now it knew the strange human was still in fact, a human.

Lifting its massively long and powerful arm, the Grimm slowly pushed its hand forward to strike!

Gritting his teeth, Jaune feels his Lore overcoming him, thus allowing him to narrowly avoid the large, slow fist aiming for the spot he was just at. Seconds after the near miss, a large crater forms from the impact, obscuring his vision from the debris flow of dust and earth, and he barely—through the shift in Outer Space—avoids the slow swing of the Grimm's arm, jumping back from the dust screen.

Thanks to the sudden distance between him and it, Jaune observes the emotionless red orbs piercing from even through the dust cloud, slowly getting a clear picture of what this new Grimm really looked like as its body's outline started to focus from the dust.

Soulless, blood eyes that had almost childlike wonder was attached to a surprisingly simple face with no mouth, or nose, or even bone platting for that matter. The face was rounded and lacked any real features except for the eyes, but it's not the face that strikes Jaune's inner will. Nope! It's the damn things body that sends a haunting shiver down his spine.

The monster had an abnormally large muscular frame covered to its teeth in bone platting with little pikes of bone sticking out from the shoulders. Its chest and torso oozed muscles and age, and the damn thing hosted up on its outlandishly long arms for support. The legs weren't as muscular, but the arms more than made up for the lack of muscle, especially with the long claws piercing out from underneath. For all Jaune Arc knew, this thing had at least one to two-hundred pounds of muscle on him and was almost twice as tall.

But the damn worst part about it was, Jaune can _feel_ even more but far weaker Grimm hanging lazily behind in the forest shadows, all sporting the same curious eyes. Now they're so obvious, he didn't know how he missed them before. But they're there. They must've been watching them fight the Leos from earlier. And it looks like the King of them came to play instead of the soldiers.

Damn.

Even with Lore here to help, Jaune's not _too_ sure what he can do. Gravity and Black Hole only affected Aura the last time he's checked, and Grimm _do not_ have Aura. Plus, he could see only Lore surrounding the Grimm in a large mask of perpetual darkness, only backing up his Grimm do not have Aura fact. Things would probably be different if he could create a sword, but Monty hasn't been smiling down upon him on that little problem, either. Oum knows he's tried.

Looks like he's going to have to use his hands for this one! Time for those two weeks of humiliation to pay off!

Moving into an amateurish fist stance he's picked up from a stubborn Yang here and there with far too many openings, Jaune waits idly by for the large Grimm to come at him, but it just stands there, tilting its plain black head at him as if couldn't quite comprehend the situation. Eventually, the Grimm slowly looks past Jaune to an exhausted Nora, angry Ren, and defeated Pyrrha. Then it looked back at him with conviction and moved one step closer in a very slow manner.

Jaune took no chances and took a step back, instantly creating three Gravities to accompany him in the fight. Even if the orbs did nothing to the Grimm, which it did not from Jaune's Outer Space perspective on how the Grimm's Lore didn't seem affected by the three Lore spheres at all from his distance, he still felt safer with them close by. Call it instinct. Call whatever! He wanted them!

And Ren's earlier idea could prove useful... if he could somehow implement it and find a way to manipulate the gravity around him.

Keeping two Gravities close, Jaune willed the third closer to the Grimm, proud at his control of the sphere's speed compared to when he first started. And just maybe, maybe wondering if Gravity could find some way to harm the slow monster.

Hoping silently that Lore or Gravity would've done something—anything! But nope! Turns out that Lore _really_ is an Aura user's greatest enemy. Because from Jaune's Outer Space view, it did nothing when the orb was practically floating face-to-face with the Grimm, who at the moment, peered the sphere lazily with unmatched curiosity.

Curiosity that throws Jaune off his game and allows some emotion other than desperation and anger to escape, enough to remind the Grimm that this creature standing in front of it was still indeed a human. And before Jaune could figure out what was happening, the Grimm lazily slaps away the Gravity with amazing force, and Jaune feels his control completely slip as the orb leaves his range of control and crashes into a tree—destroying it in the process.

Jaune barely has time blink before the Grimm's shadow grabs his distracted attention, and he's forced to turn and see a slow fist coming towards him. His arms come up to a cross guard at the very last second, and the collision with the Grimm's fist is more than enough to fracture something in his already weakened right arm.

Team JNPR's leader doesn't even get time to scream from the pain as he's sent flying through the air, crashing beside Ren and the rest of his team. The two Gravities had followed alongside him, unknowingly to his knowledge, and lessened the impact a tiny bit from the attack, weakening the force around their host in an attempt to lessen the blow's trajectory.

It's all instinct based and Jaune never notices as he stands up from a crater too small.

Feeling his body cold and blood warm as it dripped down his right arm, Jaune breathes heavily from the sudden punch, really wishing that Lore healed wounds. Anything at this point. But he's forced to push aside his own injuries for the time being, needing to go on the offensive before this Grimm could continue its assault.

Thinking on his feet, Jaune spars a momentary glance at his partner's defeated and unconscious form and gets a rush of determination to stop this Grimm. He rushes hazardously towards the behemoth, willingly the Gravities to follow and perhaps even be used as a distraction. The first two rush towards the Grimm while Jaune slows down, doing nothing to the monster as it flicks them away, but just giving Jaune enough time to aim a leveled fist to the Grimm's plain face.

The force behind his fist does nothing—absolutely nothing.

And Jaune Arc doesn't realize he's taken a direct hit to the chest from the Grimm's fist before he's sent flying back.

There's no pain... not until he's trying to crawl out of the second hollow he's helped create, and it's numbing and cold. To the point his breathing is beyond shallow, or to the point that standing on his two legs is too much to bare with vibrations threatening to shatter his ribs. Doesn't really matter! He could already feel more than half his Lore already gone.

There's no way he could win this fight.

At least, not alone, anyways.

Looking over his shoulder, he calls back two out of three of the Gravities, absorbing them to preserve his Lore while the third has already fracture away from Jaune's lack of control. Even if Ren's idea was solid, he still had nowhere near enough control to get them to change their gravity and thus increase his force. He was barely moving them faster than half the speed he could run. Forget about Ren's amazing idea. Survival was the top of the list.

Speaking of Ren's amazing idea, "Ren, buddy! I kind of _really_ need your help here."

There's desperation in his voice, and that seems to grab his friend's attention. Enough to at least look away from a weakened Nora for a second. Then his attention is diverted even more so to the large Grimm looming beside him and Nora, and Jaune's eyes widen.

He didn't even hear that thing move!

Moving its arms down to strike the defenseless duo, Jaune fights through the pain and dashes forwards to bring his arms up and intercept the Grimm's massive arms before they could crash down.

In retrospect, it was a terrible idea, but he had no other options. His body had moved on its own. There hadn't been any time to think! Let alone question! His friends had been in danger, and as Team JNPR's leader, protecting his teammates came first.

No matter the danger!

Collapsing under the weight behind the Grimm's forearms, Jaune's arms began to shake under the pressure. The small cracks on the earth became larger under his feet as the Grimm applied more force, attempting to finish what it started, and Jaune found that the battle was quickly falling under its favor.

Just as his bones began to crack, a surprise roundhouse kick clashed right at the Grimm's head, pressing the creature back a few steps, allowing Jaune a quick moment of relief as the weight fell away. He instantly looks to the side to see Ren out with his weapons poised at the Grimm, eyes burning in emotions.

Forgetting about everything else, Jaune smiled through the pain, sweat dripping down his tired face, "Took you long enough."

Ren loses his cool composure for a moment and frowns, "Sorry for not helping sooner—!"

"Yea, yea, hugs and kisses—whatever!" Jaune wipes away the sweat from his forehead, getting back into a unstable fighting stance. "First fight, then win! We can talk about it later!"

"No..." Ren warns, voice edging hard. "Get Nora and Pyrrha into the cabin. I'll take care of this."

Jaune pauses, looking back between the massive Grimm and Ren, "Are you sure?" he gets a simple nod and he shyly drops his stance. "Alright then."

He would argue more, but his body hurts too much for such trivial things. Plus, he's starting to feel woozy from the blood loss. At this point, he would only be in Ren's way.

Running towards the barely conscious Nora and down Pyrrha, Jaune uses his remaining Lore to give him whatever ample boost in strength he could muster to lift Nora on his back and hold Pyrrha by her upper back and legs. His body hurts from the act, but the Lore starts to numb the feeling.

He's mostly at the cabin's walls when Nora weakly tilts her head to see the Grimm that Ren was facing off. And against her body's demand for rest, she actually smiles thinly, eyes barely able to see the Grimm's simple face and body structure.

"That Grimm..." she mumbles, smiling even despite the dire situation and heavy drowsiness in her body.

"What is it, Nora?"

"I-It... it..." she wavers, but allows the words to slip past as she falls into a state of slumber. "It looks like a sloth."

Jaune spars a small glance as enters the cabin, allowing his eyes to roam the Grimm's form. Now that she mentions it...

...

Ren came to same assumption as Nora, instantly recognizing the sloth Grimm's curious eyes and body proportions that resembled a sloth. The long, sharp nails were also a dead giveaway, and the absent features on its face only strengthen his resolve. That would perfectly explain the lack of muscles on the legs—compared to the rest of its body that is—and the other, much smaller and weaker sloth Grimms hanging lazily on the trees within the forest.

No matter, Ren still acknowledged that the sloth Grimm in front of him probably outranked all the others in all terms of knowledge, age, and power.

In a funny sense, this sloth Grimm was their king—King Sloth or Sloth King—and Ren permitted the smallest of smiles to edge on his lips before killing it, and instead focusing on also killing the Sloth King in front of him.

Gripping StormFlower tightly, Ren narrows his eyes and charges forward, firing rounds at the Sloth King. His weapon's dust powered bullets do not pierce the Sloth King's armor of even thick fur that peaks out, barely tickling the monster even. So he settles into close combat with StormFlower's blades and higher level dust ammunition, using his superior speed to his advantage.

Sure, when it comes to his Fearless Leader, he's got him beaten on the flashy moves and powerful explosion skill set, but when it comes to speed and close-hand combat, Ren's the better fighter. He's the ninja, essentially, or at least that what Nora hassles him on and on about.

Running up to the Sloth King, Ren notices the Grimm picking up speed as well. It moves slowly at first, but when the Grimm charges, its speed surprisingly matches that of Ren's. For such a lazy monster, all the slothful moves are actually kind of hard to read for Ren with its dangerous pacing game. And don't even get him started on the monster's massive strength that defied logic. Yang couldn't ever compete.

Dodging a blow meant for his head, Ren used its massive claws as a stepping stone and lunged straight for the Grimm's head, aiming his twin pistols directly point-blank for its defenseless head. The dust powered bullets had no effect and he's shaken off before crossing his arms in midair to block an incoming swing of the sloth Grimm's arms.

The metal from his weapon takes most of the damage, but the force still sends Ren toppling through the air and into a nearby tree which another much smaller sloth Grimm curiously peered over to the human hidden beneath the broken branches, quite interested in him. Ren doesn't get his own opinion on the weird Grimm before he spots a huge boulder coming towards him.

Eyes slightly widen, Ren maneuvers out of the way, narrowly missing the huge boulder. He then aims and fires more Dust powered bullets at the sloth Grimm for a distraction, but they do nothing to the bony texture coating its entire body and the Sloth King ignores the bullets. The only real vulnerability in its defense seems to be around its head where he's barely able to see any black fur peeking out from the Grimm's curious red eyes.

Picking up speed, Ren power slides underneath another chunk of Remnant tossed at him, getting ready to try and pierce the armor with his pistol's blades.

He lunges forwards, narrowly missing another swipe of the arm from the sloth Grimm and attempts to stab the creature in the eye, but the Grimm hasn't survived for such a long time for nothing.

Before Ren could even get so much as an inch close to its head, the Grimm brings up its other paw to cover its eyes, slowly leaning its weight on the side Ren's body was currently standing on. Ren of course jumps away, sighing at the crater and tremor caused by the giant Grimm from the immediate impact, the very ground shook beneath the force.

"This isn't working," he mused, looking down at his StormFlower. He then _tched_ as the sloth Grimm slowly got back up, balancing on the claws extending out from underneath its armor. Ren's damn lucky for such an old Grimm that it moved slowly at most times.

Knowing his weapon can't pierce the Grimm's advanced bone structure and that the Sloth King will protect its face, Ren slides them back into his sleeves, thinking if both Jaune and him could somehow escape these Grimms if they each carry their partner on their back, but he fought against it a second later.

Jaune's running on fumes after practicing with his Lore and having exhausted his entire Aura reserves as it is. And Ren doubts they could escape from these sloth Grimm's in a _forest_. Trees are their friends, not Team JNPR's. And Ren _really_ doubts this big guy right in front of him will just let him leave.

Sliding his foot back, the Sloth King moves closer, sliding onto the floor and practically swimming across the clearing in a very slow but ominous movement. Then it lunges forward and Ren narrowly dodges the attack, having to resort to using his sleeve to shield his eyes from the dust explosion.

When the dust starts to clear, the Sloth King stands up and peers through the dust cloud with an impassive glare that reminded the stoic ninja a little too much of himself.

"I don't know what to do," he panicked, wishing that Nora could actually come and take care of this monster. Monstrous strength was her department. It had to be with that overly large and heavy hammer of hers.

And he should know, he's been forced to carry and wield that weapon of hers for two weeks now—?!

Gasping, his eyes widened a lot this time. He can't believe this. Should he? Could he? No. No. No! Damn it, no! But? But Nora was hurt. Badly hurt! But also alive! And neither Jaune nor Pyrrha could lend a hand right now. He was the last one standing between this Sloth King and his friends.

The first friends Nora and he had since their days in the orphanage and the streets! And he's not about to let some damn sloth Grimm take that away from him—from _her_!

Determined, Ren had no hesitation and turned around and picked up the fallen Magnhild, feeling that familiar texture of steel in his hands. Looks like Nora's quick thinking actually came in handy this time.

Thank you, Nora.

Balancing the hammer on his shoulder, Ren peered over his shoulder to the station Grimm, never once noticing at how much stronger he's gotten since the first time he's lifted up the massive hammer. Only the fierce glare of pink eyes gazed towards the Grimm, glaring lazily at it with an equally disinterested face.

"Let's go."

Kicking one foot out, Ren twisted the hammer, resting the head onto the floor. He calmly stepped onto the head and fired the handle, flying through the air towards the large sloth Grimm. The monster retaliated by swinging its arm towards the airborne Ren, mildly surprised at the human kicking up the hammer to rest on both his shoulders as it ran across on its large arm.

Sliding forward, Ren turned the hammer into his hand, bringing down Magnhild onto the Grimm's arm. He could see a slight tremor pass through the body, and he fought the urge to smirk, using the handle to twist and spin out of the way from the Grimm's counterattack.

Dodging the counterattack, Ren fired again, building up momentum and sliding across the grassy floor to land another heavy blow on the Grimm's chest. Another tremor passes through the body and Ren could see the sloth Grimm move around from the sudden pain, thrashing its arms slowly towards Ren in an attempt to grab and neutralize him.

He fires Magnhild, using the Grimm's body as momentum to launch backward. He then uses the hammer to ground him, stopping the momentum entirely.

Unlike Nora, Ren preferred to rely more on the laws of physics and gravity, rather than brute physical strength to unleash devastating force. And he did so by twisting his body on the hammer's handle and bringing up the weapon to swing in the air with an arc before firing another round to spin the hammer a second time with his foot skidding on the floor to build up even more momentum.

Dust traveled behind the velocity of the head of Magnhild and crashes together with the Sloth King's chest, actually forcing the Grimm to stumble back a few steps from the intense collision.

Looking up, Ren sees a large crack mark on the Grimm's bony armor, pleased that he was making some headway. But darn was he getting tired and every second he kept fighting the Grimm seemed to be waking it up from its restfulness more and more. Not something he would prefer.

Aiming for another buildup blow, Ren ducked underneath a claw swipe and fired again to swing, but things change. The Sloth King learned of Ren's tactic, using its other massively large arm to block the hammer before it could build up a lot of momentum. And Ren's too stunned to do anything before a slow but powerful fist collides with his exposed chest, literally knocking the wind out of him.

Stumbling across the clearing with a trail of dirt following him, Ren eventually comes to a stop with a deep burn centering on his upper and lower chest.

He _cannot_ take another one of those.

Trying to get up, Ren wonders if this is how Jaune felt when his Aura hit zero. Pain and trouble breathing!

Forcing his muscles to move, Ren uses Magnhild to hold himself up, observing the sloth Grimm slowly making its way towards him. And without any sort of warning, the Sloth King picks up speed that rivals Ruby's and Ren's forced to bring up the handle of the hammer to intercept the head-butt to the chest.

More for lessening the damage than anything else as he's still sent high up in the air from the strong impact, but while in the air, he does get an idea.

Floating in the air, Ren turns his body like Nora, firing another round of her hammer to come crashing down back to Remnant. The sloth Grimm waits for him, preparing to strike Ren within striking distance and Ren knows that this is the deciding move.

All in!

Firing a second shot, Ren picked up even more speed, barely dodging the Grimm's massive fist. He landed powerfully on the floor, cracking the floor, and fired his last round to increase the hammer's speed towards the one opening he's got.

But Ren holds back, twisting his heels on the floor to build up one more spin from the still increasing momentum, fixing his knees strongly on the floor to twist his shoulders and torso back to deliver a powerful blow for the Sloth King's chest.

It's all or nothing!

 _Crash_!

Crashing Magnhild right at the crack in the Grimm's armor, a powerful shock wave moves from the epicenter of the crash, creating a powerful wind to travel across the entire clearing and past the trees themselves where the other lesser sloth Grimms resided and hang on.

Not one creature moves from the silence, wondering what the outcome would be.

Then...

 _C-Crack_! _Crack_!

Hearing something breaking, Ren looks forward and spots the bony armor around the Sloth King begin to break where he hit it. A large chunk of the Grimm's chest breaks apart, shattering onto the floor. Though a large amount of bony structure remain, Ren could now see the sloth Grimm's black fur peeking out from the hole he's caused.

It really amazes him that after all that, the monster was still standing, lazily staring down at the broken part of its armor as if it meant absolutely nothing. Like this fight meant absolutely nothing!

Which at this point, it didn't seem like—?!

Taking a sudden step back, the Grimm sharply falls on its back, seeming defeated or either too tired to fight anymore. Its massive arms and legs stretch out all over the clearing, looking obviously tired.

Ren doesn't exactly know what to make of it, but he's not tempting fate again and cautiously moves in for the kill, using his remaining Aura to lift the hammer once more over the exposed section of Grimm's armor plating.

For a second, he prepares to finish off the supposedly defeated Grimm, thinking nothing but finishing off this massive beast, but he stops at the curious and natural glare the monster had. Its crimson eyes peered at Ren with the same level of curiosity that Nora has every time she begs for answers. Almost like it's challenging Ren, testing him even.

Shaking his head, he lifts and brings the hammer down— _you'd be surprised at what a Grimm will do if you leave them alone after proving you're the stronger one. They'll back off_ —and stops it before he can connect.

Remembering Jaune's words and his crazy stories about Death Stalkers and Beowolves, Ren sighs, unable to believe where his thoughts are scattered. He even shakes his head and re-attempts to finish off the Sloth King multiple times, but always stops himself. Because somewhere in the back of his head, Lie Ren knows that if the other sloth Grimm's decided to join in the attack after their king falls... Team JNPR would surely fall.

Only his leader's advice stops him from committing suicide.

 _Kind of makes you wonder, huh? What else would a Grimm do if you spare it..._

Can he? Can he really take this chance? Knowing his accursed luck?

He's not so certain.

Although, now he couldn't find the will in him to finish off this Grimm anymore... not when it stared at him with those childlike eyes. There's too much of Nora in those eyes. The gesture is even stranger since Ren knew it could probably still fight, and was most likely just too tired to fight anymore or simply did not care.

Heh, he could actually relate to that.

Pulling Magnhild away, he looks at the ancient Grimm, glaring lightly, "You're lucky your Nora's favorite animal."

Walking away with the hammer balanced on his shoulder, Ren silently prepares his remaining Aura just in case the sloth Grimm gets up and attacks him, but it doesn't move until he's halfway out the clearing, leaning forward to stare curiously at the human that spared a Grimm.

Ren glares back, harboring no hate or fear, just indifference. Maybe he would've harbored some sort of hate a few months ago, but his leader has drastically changed his perceptive since then. So, no, it's not hate, just unwavering cautiousness that any creature has when their instincts are stretched to their limits.

Slouching up, Ren still doesn't maneuver Magnhild into a defensive position, waiting for the Grimm to make the first move. But when it takes a very slow step forwards, for the first time during the fight, Ren sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose.

"I just want to protect my partner, sleep all day, and relax... is that too much to ask?"

Stopping at those words, the ancient Grimm appears to understand the human's plea, ever so slightly staring up at the cloud filled sky. Ren still doesn't move as it stares back down at him and then the hole in its armor plating, and then back at him again.

Seconds turn into a minute before the slothful Grimm turns around and walks away sluggishly, making a large gurgle sound that echoes through the woods. Moments later, the other younger sloth Grimms answer the call, climbing down towards the massive Grimm that even seemed larger in comparison now from the trees.

Their black fur bodies huddle up together towards the King and Ren's not sure what they're planning, but his instincts are telling him to wait and not worry about a sloth assault. And wait he did, but not too long before the overly large sloth Grimm turns back around and slides across the clearing halfway towards the Ren.

There's that same look of curiosity in its eyes as it peers at Ren. Then, without any sort of warning, the Grimm turns around, venturing towards the nearest pair of trees and hugs the bark, instantly falling asleep with the other lesser sloths following its lead.

Ren's not too sure what to make of it.

But he does know he envies them for being able to sleep without a care in the world after the intense battle that just occurred and aftermath that Ren still had to take care of.

Not completely sure whether the Grimms will attack, Ren hesitantly moves back to the cabin where Jaune waited by the door, eyes wide.

"What just happened?"

"I don't know," he stressed, feeling the strain of Magnhild on his shoulders now. But he pushes that aside instantly for, "How's Nora?"

"Aren't you even a little bit worried about them?"

Glancing hardly back at most of the sleeping Grimm, he wasn't. Ren really didn't feel worried about them at all for some odd reason. And he didn't care enough to tempt his _luck_ today, not anymore. Jaune's words just keep bouncing around in his head too much to care, anymore.

"No."

...

In the end, there is no happy ending or perfect end to the perfect day. Rather, in the dead of the night, the males of Team JNPR sit in the living room part kitchen on the couch with a fire blazing strong, wounds patched and bodies extremely sore. Nora and Pyrrha have been placed in the same bed with the room that had no window, to keep prying eyes away. And after much hesitation, Ren had left them to rest, looking positively drained. Even more so after Jaune told Ren that Nora had been suffering from Lore entering her system.

Luckily for him, Ren knew a thing or two about first aid and patched Pyrrha's abdominal, bandaged Nora's head, and wrapped his right arm up and stopped the bleeding. Good thing too since his Aura was just barely recharging and all he could rely on was his Lore to keep him going, even if healing didn't seem to be a factor the dark power possessed. More of a give and take relationship since Jaune kind of needed his Lore to make sure no other Grimms were approaching the cabin. But except for the sloths he still felt outside, no other Grimms seemed to be around the area.

That's good.

"You're probably still wondering why I lost it when Nora got hurt," Ren suddenly broke the silence, barely glancing at Jaune. "I owe you an explanation... I'm sorry. We almost died because I was so out of it."

Jaune smiles weakly, eyes tired, "No, it's fine. Nora was dying. And you didn't know what to do. I can sort of understand."

More silence stretches and the fire's breathing is the only sound echoing in the room. No words are exchanged, but it's an awkward silence. Not the usual level of comfortable silence Ren and him are used to.

"I wonder how Nora even got Lore in her system in the first place?" Again Ren breaks the silence with another question. "Jaune?"

Jaune pretends to think about it, but in the end, it's not that hard of a mystery for him to solve, "She probably ate the Lore shard I was working on."

Ren actually turned his head at him, "You had a Lore shard?"

"Yea, I was making one, just because... you never know," he shrugged halfheartedly with guilt. "But I never thought Nora would find it and then _eat_ it. That's the very reason I hid it," he laughed hollowly. "Hehe, guess she found it, anyways."

Jaune Arc kind of assumed that Lie Ren would be angry with him for getting his childhood friend in danger—he's honestly waiting for an violent outburst—but he merely stared blankly, never once breaking his mask. Then Ren looked back at the fire, allowing the blanket of heat to warm the room.

Memories he's locked away begin to blur right in front of him, and tries desperately to ignore them... but they won't stop. Not while Nora is hanging by a thread in the other room and Jaune and him are the only things keeping away the monsters outside. But Ren couldn't hold it in!

Just... just seeing Nora so broken up with him unable to help brought back some painful memories for him to relive, and he tries to forgot. Oh, he tries so damn hard! But they're there! And they aren't leaving anytime soon. Not again! Not this time!

Feeling his resolve weaken, Lie Ren thought about his Fearless Leader—which he definitely knew wasn't fearless, but he's not planning to crush Nora's spirits—and recalls the instant his secret had been revealed to them by accident... more or less. Okay, not really an accident. It was intentional on their part. And some days, thinking back on it, Ren still feels bad at discovering Jaune's secret before he could find the confidence to just tell them.

Ironically, Nora calls Ren the ninja of the team and that's partially true. He's centered most of his life to following the beliefs behind them. Ninjas wear a mask, remain calm, have hidden weapons, hide their emotions, and have secrets. Ren understand secrets better than anyone. Some people think keeping secrets is the sign of a bad person. He personally thinks it's the sign of being human. Trust is not something one should just willingly give. It's something that must be earned. And because of that, he feels ashamed for discovering Jaune's secret before he told them.

At the time, Pyrrha's emotional outburst made more sense to him than it did for Jaune, but that did not completely justify her actions.

She had been mad, that much was fair considering the cold circumstances. Pyrrha felt betrayed for Jaune not opening up to her twice. And Ren has a sneaky suspicion that the champion had many people that looked up to her, but no friends growing up. A causal smile and simple _Hello Again_ had been her only real weapons for making friends. Luckily for her, Jaune fell to her might and they quickly became friends.

Then the Cardin fiasco happened.

Ren learned two things about his leader that day. One, Jaune was prone to slipping on a mask to protect the people around him, for good or bad intentions, and Ren could sadly relate to that struggle. And two, he lived by a strict Arc code that forced him to always want to prove himself in the face of overwhelming odds.

And when those facts are mixed with the knowledge of Jaune's little progress in Pyrrha's training regiment and his tendencies to lie here and there, well then, you have a recipe for disaster. It's no mystery why Jaune distanced himself in order to train and practiced all on his own. At that point, how could he not?

And then back to Pyrrha, Ren could see why she would be angry and emotionally hurt. How could she not be mad at him for lying to her twice? Having hoped they got past this _no more lying_ phase Nora so eloquently put it. But her anger—like Ren knew—wasn't totally justified. Honesty is a two way street and Pyrrha should've told Jaune that his progression in training had been nonexistent. In the end, they were both at fault, and had worked out their differences.

Probably helped that Pyrrha enjoyed having a partner who could match her almost to skill and wits now, even though she would most likely never say it, hating the idea that lying to your team could have any positive effects.

Ultimately, everything worked out in the end, against the odds, and their team was stronger than ever. Well, not now of course. But this all did come back to where his train of thought had originally been at.

Secrets.

He's betrayed Jaune's trust once and his leader instantly forgave him. Now it felt like his turn was up to reveal something and keep karma at bay, because Lie Ren absolutely knows that karma is a cruel mistress and watches over him. And he did owe Jaune a reason for freezing up on the battlefield and further endangering their lives. Besides, he's tired of hiding who he is and Nora's almost-death has finally pushed him over the edge.

Glaring at the fire, Ren's eye twitched and he looked over to Jaune, masked finally slipping from so many bottled up emotions, "I wasn't always like this, Jaune..."

Jaune lightly glances over to Ren, playing carefully with the bandages on his right arm, "Like what?"

And the mask finally falls...

"Like—Like this?!" he stands heatedly, gesturing to every part of his person in a rare bout of free emotion. "I used to act normal. Smile, joke, and even laugh. Nora and I..." there's a harsh pause, and Ren feels his emotions slipping into a dangerous territory. "We each used to have a _family_. Both of us... but... it's my fault. I ended it."

A piece of wood splinters in the fire from Ren's outburst and he glares a bit at the offending element, slowly sitting back down. His shoulders suddenly sag and he can't help but sigh at the terrible memories resurfacing back from the depths of the abyss he tossed them in. Luckily his leader says nothing to the random secret, and Ren's forever grateful, content to being allowed to move along his own pace.

The only sound both the males listen to is the fire burning, filling the room with a light glow. Seconds turn into minutes before Ren tilts his head towards his leader, lifting a hand covered in a low layer of pinkish energy that Jaune recognizes from his Space. Only this time, he's seeing it in Outer Space, and the glow is strong and distinguishable in a room coated with auburn and crimson.

Ren grips his hand, allowing only a fraction of his semblance to leak out and touch the wooden floor. Immediately the wood cracks and splinters, but barely holds out. Even then Ren sighs, forcing his semblance back. Like he's disappointed in himself.

"My semblance is probability, misfortune... in short, bad luck."

Stunned at finally learning Ren's semblance, Jaune forgets about Ren's confession about Nora and him having no families and slowly recounts all the times he's seen Ren use his semblance, mostly during his spars with Ruby, but sometimes here and there on small things. All of it makes sense now, and Team JNPR's leader can't fight the urge to grin.

"Bad luck!" he will admit, he's majorly jealous. "Whoa! That's an awesome semblance!"

Every piece of wood in the fire suddenly breaks in two simultaneously, the flooring cracks in every corner, and the flame almost reaches outside the pit, enlightening the room a glow of fierce color that's a mixed of crimson and ominous pink.

"It is _not_ an awesome semblance!" Ren roared louder than ever, even louder than Nora's ever reached, finally losing the mask Jaune never even knew he wore. Those pinkish eyes of his glowed ominously in fury and made Yang's crimson eyes pale in comparison, breaking the bleak illusion of a stoic friend and more of a person filled with only hurt and regret. Seconds later, Ren realizes what's done and calms himself, reattaching his mask, although the sadness is clearly evident, "It's not... an awesome semblance."

He's almost afraid to ask, "Why? Why are you telling me this?"

Looking down at the fractured floor, Ren felt all his spirits drained at the damaged he's caused, "I don't know. Maybe it's because I'm afraid of the idea of being alone. Maybe just because you deserve the truth or who knows." Cursing life, he tried to control his emotions better. "I— _we've_ never told you or Pyrrha this... Nora and I are orphans."

"... What?"

Ren suddenly stands up and looks out to the hall where Pyrrha and Nora were recovering, "Our families were killed... and it was all _my_ fault. I lost— _Nora_ lost her parents, her entire family because of me."

Jaune didn't really understand what the mood was, but what Ren said couldn't possibly be true. He caused the death of his and Nora's family? That's just not possible. Ren practically lives to make Nora happy.

Jaune stands up as well, grabbing his shoulder, "C'mon, Ren. That can't possibly be—?"

"No! It's true!" he shrugs away Jaune's hand, fixing him a strong glare. "It's all my fault!" Ren then quickly moves back to the couch when some of the hallway floors begin to crack. There's this defeated glare in his eyes, even with an uncaring face, and Jaune says nothing even with Ren's semblance threatening to escape his body.

So instead, he opts to sit down and allow Ren to steer the conversation in any direction he wants. Doesn't take too long before Ren's calmed himself down and his semblance is quiet once more.

"My Aura was unlocked when I was just a child. My family—from the bits and pieces I could still remember—called me a genius. Told me that I was born lucky. And that had been my downfall. I thought I could do anything. I thought I was special! I had been so blind at the time."

This time Jaune can't help but ask, "What made you so different? What made you lucky?"

Ren peered at Jaune with an intense gaze, widening his eyes for his leader to see, "I was born with two pink eyes."

He knew his leader was still lost, that much was plainly obvious. So Lie Ren continued to dwell on his family tree, "Unlike Nora's family, mine had resembled more of Weiss's family. And if you know anything about the Schnees, their semblance is hereditary. My family kind of followed that same scheme, except our semblances only had things to do with Bad Luck and controlling the power of chance and odds. A special trait my family once had was our pink eyes and distinguishable hair."

Ren pointed at his eyes, "Almost all of my family had one pink eye, but like I've told you, I have two. That's what made me different and gave me my semblance. Besides the pink eyes, we all had pale skin and unique hair," he gently grabbed the pink strand between his black locks. "No matter what, we have more than one color of hair, but one color that has always stuck has been pink. You think I dye this, don't you? I don't. It's naturally like this."

"How come I've never heard of your family before?"

Ren shrugged, "We'd kept mostly to ourselves. We weren't really big fans on _talking_. A bad luck semblance isn't exactly something we wanted others to know about... especially criminals."

Jaune glanced back at the hallway, "And how does Nora's family fit into all this?"

His friend searched for the right words, trailing really. "The Valkyries were mostly family friends... but only because they never left us alone. Nora's stubbornness comes from them and their boisterous attitude. It was just much easier to accept them than try to push away an unmovable wall. Less of a headache that way."

Jaune Arc could see the truth behind his words. Trying to get Nora to do the opposite of what she wanted was a nightmare all on its own. Sometimes even his leader authority held no power over the mad bomber. Not like he's tried too often to control her, but the few times he has, the outcome never _really_ came out the way he desired.

Jaune grinned anyways, "I can actually see that happening."

But Ren didn't return the grin and went on, needing to get this off chest and not be distracted, "Being shrouded by arrogance because I thought I was born lucky, I was in such a hurry to reach my semblance and I ignore my family's warning to slow down. I essentially tried to run before I could walk. Every day I cursed my _rotten_ _luck_ for not being able to achieve my goals. So one day I did every bad luck thing I could possibly think of... and it worked. I had finally unlocked my semblance that allowed me free reign over the probability of chance."

Jaune saw Ren form a fist and his voice cracked a little, "And that's when everything fell apart. My own terrible luck caught up to me, and cursed me for ignoring the warnings my family gave me to slow down and learn properly who I was. My bad luck semblance killed our families."

The Arc was confused, "But... but I thought your family's semblance was hereditary? How could it have led to their deaths?"

He remained silent, listening to the fire burn away the wood, but Ren finally lifted up his hand again and called forth just a smudge of his semblance to hover over his palm. Jaune saw all this through Outer Space, and couldn't believe something so calm could cause so much pain.

"Unlike me," Ren pulled him away from his thoughts. "My family had common semblances between each other that had to do with bad luck, but couldn't just cause bad luck on a whim. One of the strongest was creating glass illusions that reflected perfect doppelgangers of the user."

Glass illusions? "And how did that work?"

Ren hums thoughtfully, "Nothing too complicated, really. All someone had to do was smash the glass illusion and the semblance would take effect and curse the opponent with seven seconds of bad luck. Not really difficult when you first think it's the actual person standing there. Didn't hurt that the semblance could be used as a distraction and even alter your appearance," Jaune's about to ask, but Ren beats him. "Seven seconds probably doesn't sound like a lot, right? Well... it only takes one second to slit your throat."

And his leader is silent again.

"My family also had a code they followed. Anything bad luck or that could influence bad luck that could be utilized as a weapon would be favorable over any other weapon, unless of course the person wasn't very versatile with the weapon to begin with."

Okay, now Jaune's definitely lost, "And what does that mean?"

"Your weapon had to be something that could cause bad luck."

Jaune, despite the tension, still grinned a little, "What? Like a ladder or black cat?"

Lie Ren gave him a sideways glance, neither angry nor happy, "The preferred weapon was mostly an umbrella. Since opening up one indoors is a sign of misfortune and allowed a range of options to be used. Hidden blades and a rounded shield always made fighting a lot easier. But I didn't fall under any of those codes. My semblance allowed me free control over misfortune. I could create my own bad luck."

It's the first time Jaune's ever heard Ren laugh, and it's hollow and dead. "Of course at the time, I didn't know it was a curse. I didn't know, but by the time I did, it was already too late. I had been using my semblance far too carelessly and it spread too much. Eventually, disaster struck. Both Nora's and my family fell to ill misfortune, and I knew it was my fault. I could _feel_ and even _see_ my semblance all over their remains. They said it was a freak accident—but I _knew_!"

Ren gritted his teeth, letting his mask slip again, "And I told Nora it was all my fault. I wanted her to know that I was the one that took away out families. I wanted her to be mad at me and hate me and never trust me again! Hate me for everything I took away—but do you know what she did? She forgave him! Me! A monster that robbed her of everything! I didn't deserve that!"

Fighting his emotions, Ren is unable to stop the lone tear that slides across his cheek, and he stubbornly wipes it away. He knows he doesn't deserve tears. Jaune in the meantime, lets Ren work through the emotions, not sure whether to comfort him or not. It's all so confusing for him. And he has a feeling that Ren's been bottling this up for years.

Having seven sisters never prepared him for this.

"Ever since then," Ren added, smiling gently at the thought of Nora's forgiveness. "I devoted my life to finding ways to stop my semblance from destroying the last good thing left in my life. Only using the barest of minimal when I fight or otherwise. Never too much."

"How did you stop your semblance from causing havoc?" Jaune asked, not sure if he wanted the answer or not.

No words are said for a brief moment, and all Jaune can see is Ren staring lifelessly at the burning fire. Eventually, he looks away from the flame and stares tiredly at Jaune, almost attempting another smile.

"You know better than anyone Jaune that Aura is also controlled by emotions." Ren allows the weight of his words to fall on Jaune, not surprised when his leader finally puts the pieces of the puzzle together, coming to the same conclusion he came up with all those years ago, and pure disbelief floods his leader's face.

"You killed your own emotions... to protect Nora?"

Ren glares at the fire again, hating every part of himself, "I'll do anything to protect Nora. I'm all she has... a _monster_ that killed both our families. A _genius_ that did the most foolish things and made the biggest mistake in both our lives. Heh, how messed up is that? How did she _luck_ out and get the monster as her only friend for twelve years!" Ren then pulls out Jaune's Aura notebook from his sleeve and tosses it back to him, "It's also the reason I'm so interested in your Aura control..."

Nothing more needs to be said. Jaune fully understands now why Ren was so keen on his notes. Any possible way to keep his semblance from hurting the ones he cares about is enough of a motivator for Lie Ren.

"But that doesn't mean you should try and kill off your emotions!" his leader argued, but Ren easily countered with his own.

"Some semblances are based off control and others off emotions, and then both. You know Yang's can be fueled off raw emotion and Ruby sometimes uses hers by accident when she's overexcited." Ren sighed. "Negativity and anger created my semblance, and all it could do is cause destruction and pain. I'm just... unlucky."

Jaune didn't care, "But you've been better lately. I've noticed it, and so have Pyrrha and Nora. Sure, you still don't express much, but every once in a while we all see something. You even smile more and—!"

"And look where that's led me!" Ren gestured to him and towards the bedridden females of the team. "Don't you get it?! I didn't just take away Nora's parents, I took away _everything_! I don't deserve to be anywhere near her! She deserves better! You all do!"

Jaune realizes that Ren's talking about the Grimm attack and Nora's near-death experience and he gets up from the couch, grabbing him by the shoulder, "Ren, you can't blame yourself for something that was out of your control."

Shoving his hands away, Ren glares at Jaune, "That's exactly why I'm blaming myself."

He then shoves past him and attempts to walk out the cabin and get his emotions under control, but Ren stops at the door and sighs sadly, letting his hand linger on the handle just for a bit. He could feel the sting of anger building up, only to be turned into mushed sadness, but not for his sake.

"Ren—?"

"I'm all Nora has left, well, that and this team. We have no home to go to or family waiting for us if we fail."

Then Ren's out the door before Jaune could stop him. And he wants to run after him, but someone has to stay behind and watch Nora and Pyrrha, and that's probably why Ren even left in the first place. Better to have their Fearless Leader stand guard then allow some emotional, bad luck ticking time bomb go off and do Monty knows what amount of damage to a weakened team.

Still, Jaune Arc's eyes linger around the damaged cabin, eventually resting on the fire still burning with small traces of Ren's semblance in the wood. His broken friend's words come back to haunt him, and he doesn't know what to do.

 _We have no home to go to or family waiting for us if we fail._

He really needs to win the Vytal Tournament.

If not for him... then them.

Someone has to keep this team together.

...

Running outside to get away from the cabin before his emotions do anymore damage, Ren stops in the middle of the clearing, having the wary sensation that something was watching him from all corners.

He turns and looks towards the forest. Simple red eyes pierce through from the shadows of the mass of trees, and Ren glares at them with equally powerful pink eyes, especially at the largest of them all, feeling his emotions slipping once more.

"What?! You want a rematch?!" Moving his arms, his StormFlower pops out from the hidden space from within his sleeves and he aims directly at the shadows, not flinching when the Sloth King itself slowly emerges out from the darkness. He's sorely tempted to fire with his anger as the fuel, but doesn't. Can't— _won't_!

Not now.

Not when he needed to keep his emotions in check more than ever.

Not when Monty Oum had so gratefully prevented his semblance from causing any harm to Nora when he was heartbroken earlier.

Dropping and tossing StormFlower carelessly away, Ren gives up and simply falls to the floor, staring at the cloudy full moon night. He's just too tired and the mood to fight dies as he recalls the moon's similar appearance the same night Nora and his parent's had died. The same night he became a monster!

Sensing negative emotions come off from the human, the Grimm does nothing, observing the sadden creature who had spared its life, fall to deep misery. Those eyes of it seem oddly similar to their own, only slightly different. Brighter, yet colder. Filled to the point of bursting from guilt, regret, and self-doubt.

Feeling a gust of wind pass it's blacken fur, the king looks down at the opening within its armor. Not all of its kind was alike. Sure, the little ones hunted humans to quench the desire to fill the emptiness within the pits in their beings, needing that stranger power humans poses when clouded by sadness to feel full, but the older a species got, the smaller the hole became. Eventually the desire to fill that void simply vanishes.

Some species simply wanted aggression. The wolves, the bears, the boars, even the scorpions all wanted only aggression. They're naturally aggressive monsters, carnivores and predators.

However, the Sloth King's species just tended to avoid conflict altogether, unless provoked or finding humans trespassing on their home territory. But this time, the sloth Grimm couldn't make heads or tails of what to think of the humans within their territory this time. Unlike most humans its kind has bear witness to but ventured away from, one of these humans possessed a life force similar to their own, and the other did not seek out their death. Plus, they all have a bit of their life force around them as well, not just the one.

Looking up to what the strange human was staring at, the king regarded with its old age and wisdom the lack of violence radiating from the creature, still only sensing extreme sadness. Finally, the little ones behind it grew restless and moved a little forward, but the king stopped them with a simple _huff_. This human... was different.

This human knew pain... it knew what it's like to have a void resting deep in their being that never seemed to ever even be half-filled.

Moving slowly, the sloth Grimm did not miss the cautious sideways glance the human threw at it, but simply lazed over the threat, moving beside the human on the floor to lay with it. It always did enjoy a good relaxing laze, and apparently this human enjoyed it as well. And the strange ball in the sky and shadows did look pleasant this dusk.

Too lazy to even find the urge to fight anymore, Ren did not stop the massive sloth Grimm from lying beside him, vaguely content to allowing it to rest next to him, and confident enough to dodge if a preemptive strike ever did come.

Imagine him, the apparent prodigy, the lazy one, the _monster_ , relaxing with a sloth Grimm. It's troublesome, really. No words are spoken—not like he expected the Sloth King to speak—but it's a comforting yet awkward silence. Grimm and man are supposed to be enemies? Yet, here he was, lying beside the largest and strongest sloth Grimm of them all. And he doesn't feel this urge to fight, not even the urge to run. Maybe it's from the lazy appearance the creature has? Or perhaps the odd face it had? Possibly even all of that.

It's ironic and not possible, but then again, the things his leader does with Aura alone can also be considered wishful thinking as well.

Glancing sideways once more at the prone Grimm, Ren couldn't help but remember Jaune's words once more... _You'd be surprised at what a Grimm will do if you leave them alone after proving you're the stronger one._ Was just another thing his Fearless Leader has discovered? Was this proof right here?

Did Lie Ren make the right choice at not killing this Grimm?

"I know my leader isn't thinking anything bad about me," Ren sighed, content to talking to humanity's threat and not having something talk back. "That's just like that of him, but I don't want pity, neither. I'm not even sure what I want or even sure if you can understand me. But your face holds no emotion. You're not judging me. Even when I was fighting you, there was nothing there."

He sat up, hugging one knee close to his chest, still staring wishfully at the moon. "I wish I could control my emotions like you can and not hurt the people that matter."

Feeling better at getting that off his chest, Ren stood up with a small wince from where the Sloth King had hit struck him, but brushed off the pain to glance down at the prone Grimm with a stare equally as detached as its own.

The king blinks once at the human as it turns to walk away and pick up its tools from the floor. It sees the struggles it overcomes and wonders what could've caused this human so much pain and regret.

It sees no anger. No resentment at not finishing it off. All it sees is a human on the verge of breaking from the negative emotions pushing down on it—a human who spared _its_ life simply because it didn't feel like killing it, far more concerned for its mate life force than the act violence, and only fighting because its mate's survival depended on it.

This human... wants only to protect.

But fear held the human down, thus preventing him from ever truly controlling his emotions. That is why the human pleads, and wishes for help. Only something that could absorb the negative feedback and channel it can truly save the human before true despair washes over him.

Understanding everything now, the Sloth King slowly gets up and returns back to the solace of the trees, calling forth the younger ones to follow alongside and not mess with the humans for the time being. For since the clearing out of their competition for space, the Leos and their king, the sloth's territory has expanded immensely, and the Sloth King knew when gratitude is deserved and when gratitude is _earned_.

Unknown to Lie Ren, sparing the Sloth King has set in motion a chain of events that not even Lady Luck could stop.

* * *

 **Author Notes:** Edited **11/6/2016**


	13. Pewter

**Disclaimer:** I own nothing of RWBY.

* * *

 **Pewter**

 **By: Imyoshi**

Wishing—a useless endeavor of someone's time.

Only doing and striving out to achieve accomplished anything.

Then and only then do wishes come true.

Jaune Arc wished to be a hero and everyday he got one step closer to fulfilling that very dream from the countless hours struggling to overcome the barriers and limitations of Aura.

But for the first time in a long time, he simply wished that Ren would return inside already. All those negative emotions his friend was feeling couldn't be good for either him or the Grimm outside. Emotions, when left astray, clouded judgment. And the last thing Team JNPR needed was someone's thought process being clouded in the mist of the enemy's territory. Especially someone whose emotions have been bottle up for who knows how many years and was their team's strategist!

The aftermath is too dark to wonder.

Hearing the front door open and close again, Jaune finally sighs lowly in relief, relaxing easier on the couch and releasing the tenseness in his shoulders. He patiently waits for Ren to return, noticing the hesitant sound of his footsteps, like he was testing whether if he should or not come back in. Then Ren's back inside, joining his leader on the couch with a stoic expression once more.

"Feeling better?"

Ren glares sadly at the cracks on the floor, "No."

In all honesty, Jaune didn't expect him to. That would be asking for too much right now. He should just be happy Ren's back in the cabin at all. But out of courtesy, he asked anyways. Call it being a leader or friend, didn't matter in the end.

Grinning, Jaune puts his hands behind the couch, wincing automatically. Both of them look at Jaune pull back his right arm, noting the red splotches of blood peeking through the bindings. Ren's already checking Jaune's arm without asking, reapplying pressure and a new set of bandages for his leader in silence. Jaune only watches him, hating the fact that Lore did not heal injuries.

Still, he's got to stay positive, "Well, luckily for you, there weren't any Grimm nearby."

Ren stops in the middle of changing Jaune's bandages, barely sliding his leader a tiny glare that's neither hateful or reassuring, silently returning back to his work. That's so far from the truth that Ren's not even sure where to begin. Too many angles and variables to account for, then there's the properties of Lore and Aura that his leader's still learning. Never mind _his_ limited knowledge.

Yet, he's oddly curious, "How do you _know_ if the Grimm are nearby?"

Using his free hand, Jaune created one Gravity and sent it out far to the corner, "It's kind of like Aura. I'm able to tell whenever someone's nearby if they're using their Aura. The same worked for the Grimm, sort of. When we were fighting and I was stuck using Lore, I was able to feel the same strange force when the Grimm attacked and when Nora ate the Lore shard. Strange, huh?" he wills away the orb. "Lore is the same power of the Grimm."

Ren finishes changing Jaune's binding, narrowing his eyes slightly at the general answer. That explanation only leads to more questions than answers, but he bites his tongue for the moment. If it hadn't been for Jaune's sensing capabilities, Nora would be dead for sure. Miracles aside, he's forever grateful.

"I'm gonna call it Outer Space! It's different from regular Space." Ren nods, remembering Jaune's Space section from his Aura notebook.

Although, he's deeply troubled and endlessly confused inside. If what his leader said was true—and there's a high chance since Aura is involved—then how come he couldn't sense the _Sloth King_ outside just right now? That made absolutely no sense to the stoic ninja. That Grimm was a powerhouse compared to everything else outside. The sound and earthshaking of its footsteps alone should've alerted his leader to its presence.

Yet, it didn't.

"What else can you do with Lore?"

Jaune checks his newly bandaged hand, flexing his fingers in awe. He can see his Lore not do anything to his arm, and a tiny, sad smile spreads evenly on his face. What else could he do with Lore?

Well, "Not much." His eyes narrow as he forms a strong fist, "I know Lore's not like Aura... but I didn't realize how different it really was until we were fighting. Except for the strength and speed boost, it's kind of useless against a Grimm. It doesn't heal, and there's really no way to do damage unless if you're an Aura user, which, only works for humans."

"That's..." Ren adds slowly, "... inconvenient. In one way, Aura destroys a Grimm, and in the other, Lore destroys a Hunter. They're the same in different ways."

Leave it to Lie Ren to make sense to a situation that made absolutely no sense.

"Yea," Jaune frowns at his hand. "I just don't know if I can trust in it."

That makes two of them. Ren's not too sure if he can trust the Sloth King to remain at bay even after the fight and their nightly talk. Rooted instincts tell him not to, but his intelligence says something else entirely. It's all so confusing in an ambiguous sort of way. And he personally hates being lost. Never leads down to any positive outcomes.

Watching Jaune stare hard at his hand and pull on the bindings, Ren got to his feet, "I need to change Nora's bandages and check on Pyrrha's breathing."

"Are you sure you're up to it?"

Ren bares him a small smile, "I'm good. I've got my emotions under better control."

Jaune doesn't look like he believes him, but gives his teammate the benefit of the doubt and follows him in the girl's room. They're not surprised to find Nora snoring or even the fact that Pyrrha is snoring almost just as loudly. Ironically enough, the guys of Team JNPR don't snore, and the girls do. Pretty damn loudly they might add. Fortunately or unfortunately—whichever way someone wants to see it—both Jaune and Ren are used to it.

Years of living with Nora Valkyrie and seven sisters will do that to a man.

Still, it gives Ren the check he needs to see if Pyrrha is any pain from her ribs. And judging by her equal air intake and pain free expression, she's not. Most likely she'll be extremely sore in the morning and a few days to come. And for Nora, well, he's just damn happy to see her breathing with a tiny trail of drool rolling off her mouth.

"They're out cold." Ren hums, more statement than observation. He lightly lifts Nora's head to check her injuries. "They're gonna need some time to rest and heal."

"I'll have to split up my Aura so they can heal faster." Jaune notes, checking on his barely recharged Aura reserves. His fellow male nods, satisfied with both their conditions.

"We'll take turns keeping watch."

They fight for the next few minutes on who gets to go first. In the end, they settle on both sitting on the couch, watching the fire play endlessly into the night. Both stuck having lingering thoughts on the powers of Lore. One evasive and the other direct. Neither certain.

...

Rays of sunlight peek through the window and the males of Team JNPR are the first to wake up, stunned instantly that they fell asleep when they were supposed to keep watch. Ren's up first, dashing to the room to check up on Nora and Pyrrha, who are still sleeping soundly, if not weakly. Jaune's right behind him, switching to his mostly recharged Aura to get a better look at Nora and Pyrrha's Aura and feel their respected Space.

He checks on Pyrrha first—being her partner and all—and his relatively relieved to see her crimson Aura focusing directly where her fractured ribs needed it the most. Her Aura is still very weak, nothing a few Aura shards can't fix, but it looks like she's going to be fine in the end. That's good. Jaune's damn happy she's safe.

Focusing his attention to his next _favorite_ person, Jaune's eyes narrow at Nora's body, "Something's wrong."

Of course Ren's instantly on the defensive, even with him trying to keep his emotions in check, "What's the mattered? Is something wrong with her Aura?"

Naturally, Ren came to the conclusion that something was amiss with Nora's Aura. Obviously she's not dead. Her chest is rising and she's snoring louder than any of the other members of Team JNPR ever could, so that's not the problem. But he is right, sadly.

"No," Jaune hates Ren sigh of relief, "Because there is no Aura. I can't see any... at all." He switches to his Lore to test an idea, "Nora's Aura is completely _gone_."

An eerie silent fills the air with only Nora's snoring and Pyrrha's lighter snoring to fill the gaps of silence. Even then, it's still uncomfortably quiet and Jaune sees some of Ren's semblance backlash slightly to an unfortunate plank of wood. The slight gasp from Ren tells Jaune he realizes what he's done and he leaves the room in a calm manner. Although, the damage is already done, and Jaune's left to try to pick up the pieces while his friend blames himself all over again.

Needing to worry more on Nora than Ren for the time being, Jaune settled down to level with Nora, squinting his eyes, and trying his damn hardest to find any faint signature of Aura or pressure of Space from the mad bomber. After a few minutes of fruitless struggles, Jaune finally picks up on a scarcely faint outline of turquoise of Aura on Nora. No pressure is detectable from the obscure amount, but at least he could see it, practically impossible as it may be.

"Thank Monty," he smiles tiredly, leaving the room in search of white Dust shards from the spare room.

He ignores Ren's line of questioning that followed as soon as he exited the room, grabbing a few white Dust shards from his bag. Instantly he's creating a few Aura shards with the quantity of a couple of Supernovas each, handing them to Ren to feed to Nora when he's done. He looks confused for a moment, not too sure why he's pushing them into _his_ hands and not doing it himself.

Jaune, for the first time ever, wants to roll his eyes at him, "You and I both know feeding Nora is your specialty, not mine. I wouldn't be caught dead trying to feed her. Besides," he grins, "I got my own partner to worry about."

There's a hidden message behind Jaune's words, and Ren accepts the Aura shards with renewed vigor and calms himself. He then rushes to the room to crush up the Aura shards and force Nora to swallow the small chunks of rocks while Jaune watches from the doorway, wondering how the hell the roles of Team JNPR suddenly got reversed.

During some moment in time, Jaune Arc became the only person that wasn't lost. With Pyrrha's confusion and guilt, Nora's sudden near death experience, and Ren's new depression, Jaune's left standing alone in the mist of the confusion. Wondering how did it come to Jaune Arc being the only person not broken on his team?

By the time he noticed it, it was already too late to stop.

 _Pressure_!

Well... not too late so it seems.

Seeing through Space, he spots Nora's Aura react to the Aura shards, draining the free energy in a hollow like hunger that had no end in sight. Ren's looking to him for some input and Jaune has to wait and see the power surge die down until only a slightly brighter outline of Nora's Aura becomes more apparent to give him the news.

Luckily, the news is good, "I can see Nora's Aura... barely. But she's gonna need more—a whole lot more," he adds quickly. "We might need to cut our training trip early and travel back to Beacon."

Jaune's expecting a hasty yes, not a calm, "No." Ren glances down at the snoring girl, gently brushing his hand over his cheek, "No. We can't. We would have to protect them alone and there's too much to carry back."

"We could just abandon our stuff."

"It still won't make a difference. It's not the stuff that I care about." Ren leads them out of the room, keeping his voice frighteningly even. "As ridiculous as this may sound, I think it would be better if we stay here until Nora's Aura is strong enough. With Pyrrha hurt, your Aura already being split, and one us needed to protect them, getting back to Beacon would be a mission that I'm not too sure we could accomplish. Especially if more Grimm decide to attack. Your Lore already can't do anything to fight back if it comes to that."

Ren knows bringing up Jaune's lack of Lore offensive capabilities is low, but points have to be made and lines need to be drawn. He does not like the choices, either, and would love nothing more to get Nora out of this Grimm infested forest, but logically, this was the better choice.

At least until Jaune could recover more of Nora's Aura and for Pyrrha's ribs to heal.

"Fine," Jaune grumbles after a few seconds of inner debate, not liking the idea.

 _Groan_!

Both sets of eyes turn to a groaning Nora.

She's arousing from her deep slumber, slow and weak with a deep frown and small trickle of sweat dripping down her forehead. Seems like the boost to her Aura was more than enough to jolt her awake and shock back her body back to the world of the living, and Pyrrha's not too far behind, allowing her eyes to flutter open before Nora who's taking her sweet time to toss and turn with limited mobility. She sits up, wincing at the harsh pain from her side, but regards the injury with high insight, knowing full well from where she might have gotten it.

Their partners are by their side in an instant, Jaune handing Pyrrha her own share of Aura shards to consume in a silent discussion and Ren kneeling to meet Nora's eye level from her narrowed vision and lackluster glow. Pyrrha consumes the Aura shards without a word, finding herself in hunger for Aura, and Nora somehow manages to smile weakly at her distraught childhood friend.

They don't speak at first; Pyrrha's allowing her Aura to feed off Jaune's Aura and Nora can't find the energy to speak. Jaune watches over them, checking on their Aura, especially the trigger-happy Valkyrie's, and Ren's changing Nora's bandages, wiping away the sweat from her face.

"So I'm assuming we won?" Pyrrha's the first to break the silence.

"Well..." Jaune jokes. "We're still alive."

"Hmm," Pyrrha smiles before indicating down to her bandaged torso. "What happened after?"

Ren stood up, finished tending to Nora's wounds, "You got hurt. We fought back. We won." he said simply. "You have a couple of fractured ribs and Nora's Aura is..."

"... Is healing," Jaune finished. "Right now you're practically on empty, Nora. It's gonna take a while to fix that." His eyes softened, "How do you feel?"

"Lousy," she croaks, barely. There is this empty feeling in the pit of her stomach and she just wants it to go away. "I feel... cold."

Ren tucks her in more while Jaune muses over her words. Lousy sounded understandable from where Nora was coming from. He understands that feeling all too well. Assuming his guess is right and that this is an aftereffect; Lore would do that to someone. The corrupt power drains away all the heat and makes you feel, for lack of a better word, _lousy_.

However, unlike Jaune, Nora's body hadn't and isn't capable of fighting off the effects of Lore, Aura or no Aura. She doesn't have the strength or control to balance out Lore. Very less survive it. He can see why Nora's Aura was all but gone. It's a damn miracle she's talking at this point or awake even.

"You're staying in bed until Jaune says your Aura is strong enough," Ren says in a tone that's strict with finality that Nora doesn't fight him on it. Not like she could. "No buts."

Sleep sounded so much better than moving, anyways.

She can already feel the burst of power she felt dwindling down back to her core. She wants nothing more than to stay awake and cherish Ren's protectiveness, but life's not fair sometimes. This is just one on those unfair moments.

Nora's back to sleep in seconds and Pyrrha's moving off the bed with Jaune's help. She's too stubborn to stay resting in bed after a fight. Her champion pride wouldn't allow it, no matter how reluctant her leader seemed.

"Your Aura's fine," Jaune reassures her evenly. "It's just all being used to heal those ribs of yours and some cuts on your noggin."

"You're going to feel sore for a couple of days and I would recommend not moving around too much," Ren added. He then glanced down at the sleeping Nora, "C'mon, we should leave her to sleep."

The rest of day passes by rather quickly. They never leave the cabin and Pyrrha listens intently to the way Jaune describes the way Ren fought off the Sloth King in adamant detail—sounding suspiciously like someone they knew. Every moment so often she expects Ren to jump in and correct Jaune's story, moving the pieces and filling in the gaps to tell the correct tales. He never does. Half his attention is divided to Nora's room and the other to listening to Jaune's story. Almost to the point like he's surprised on what really happened.

After the recounts of wonder, Ren had fixed them breakfast, taking extra time to make Nora's pancakes extra fluffy and into bite size pieces with specs of Aura shards littered in the batter. It takes no genius to notice that Nora's absolutely cooed to Ren feeding her, unable to keep the red from building up in her face from Ren wiping away a trail of syrup from the corner of her mouth in absolute resolve. Didn't help with the way Ren's eyes pierced deeply into Nora's unprepared line of sight with rare concern and unwavering determination.

Pyrrha thought the poor girl was going to faint from the blood rushing to her head.

Poor Nora... Ren had mistaken that blood rush as a sign of sickness and urged her back to bed, blind as ever. Although, Pyrrha noticed that Ren kept himself distance from Nora during most of the day, which only had confused her to no lengths. If anything, she thought he would be by her side twenty-four seven.

When she randomly asked Jaune about this, her leader had looked down at the floor of the cabin before ignoring the question all completely to go and favor create Aura shards instead.

She doesn't ask about the cracks on the floor and the guys never bring it up.

There are times she catches Jaune watching Ren move around the cabin, and then his eyes meets hers for the briefest moments before falling down to the cracks. Something tells her he wants to tell her why, but can't because it's not his story to tell. Not his secret to spill. And Pyrrha can respect that, so she settles to not move around much, having let her mind numbed to any questions she might've had.

That was, until at least Ren had checked on her bandages and a splotch of blood had become known to the both of them. To him, it had meant very little. A simple re-stitching and nothing more. To her, it had meant a great deal.

The blood had resurfaced some interesting, past memories from the day before. Memories of commanding the liquid force to bend to her will and save her from Death's iron grip. Almost to the point she wanted to pursue them, but had opted not to, in favor of not straining herself under her cautious leader's watchful gaze. But when she settles down back into the spare bed for the night—Jaune and Ren's idea for making sure she heal up—her blood colored hair catches her attention in the most fascinating ways.

She even runs her strands carefully through her fingers in bed, for the first time ever taking notice how it's always been with her, just like the metal she commands. Her pride, her joy, her symbol, just her—the color of blood—the invincible girl, everything that makes Pyrrha Nikos... Pyrrha Nikos.

So as Pyrrha Nikos stayed up and listened to the soft footsteps of both Ren and Jaune keeping watch over Nora and her for the night, if she listens close enough, she could, for just the briefest of moments, hear the same call of metal come from her discarded bandages that rested just out of reach, calling out before drifting off into a dreamless sleep.

...

Day three into their recovery and Jaune and Ren finally allow themselves to breathe. Nora's been more active at trying to leave the bed and Pyrrha's soreness is slowly fading away. The Aura shards do help immensely; however, Pyrrha doesn't like the face her leader makes when he's practically running on fumes. He just seems so tired and drained, far from his usual upbeat and energetic attitude that it just looks wrong on Jaune, but he waves it off as being nothing.

And Pyrrha's not going to pry.

She does, however, give the guys time to relax a bit, offering—demanding—she watch over Nora so they could get some fresh air. They're both stubborn to a fault, but her sickly sweet smile changes their tune rather quickly and they're getting ready to leave the cabin before another pointless argument could resurface. Not like it would matter.

Checking up on a weakened Nora like clockwork, Jaune created as many Aura shards for his friend until his Aura almost ran dry, storing a couple in his pocket for Pyrrha to use as well and some for just in case. He has to crush up the shards in his hand for Nora to be able to swallow as she lacks the energy to chew anything semi-solid on her own still. Her eyes always quickly open wide to the influx of energy in her system, almost like she might just jump out of bed right then and there, all good and new, but then she always comes crashing back down.

She always tries to fight off the urge to sleep, and has lasted quite long in Ren's presence.

So far she hasn't lasted to when Jaune shuts the door.

And that little tiny spark of info bugged the leader to no end.

Nora's case all together was a confusing problem. Her Aura was practically non-existent. Tiny sparks and a thin outline of her turquoise Aura is all Jaune can see through Space and its hardly recharging at a comfortable rate. Lore really is the greatest weapon against Aura after the damage he's witnessed. It did one hell of a number on her. Luckily she's Lore free and just really weak. The Aura shards did recharge her at a slow pace and gave her the jump start she needed.

The worst was over.

Yet it did nothing to relieve Jaune Arc's pain. None of it! All the pain from being too weak to help when it was really needed, when it really counted, and when he should've been the pillar to keep his friends from falling to their injuries, really ate away at him. That pain irked the Arc to no end and made him question the capabilities of Lore if the power acted more of a handicap than blessing.

Sometimes—a lot actually—he stares at his Lore covered arm and watches it not heal his injuries, and then he looks to the bedridden Nora and wonders if it is all worth it.

...

Walking out the cabin, Ren's eyes travel across the edge of the forest, resting them on the sparse sloth Grimm lurking in the trees with curious eyes. They didn't seem to be posing any harm and his leader hasn't run out screaming that they're under attack, and that's good enough for him to ignore them. So he lets them be with wary instinct as he travels across the clearing to rest underneath a tree that blocks out the sun.

Ren personally wants to sit beside Nora and watch over her all day and night, but won't risk the chance of his semblance causing any more harm and Pyrrha's a force of nature all on her own. He knows if anyone can fix Nora's Aura, its Jaune. But the reassurance doesn't make him feel any better, only worse. The distraction at being useless only weakens his instincts until the ruffling of some leaves and breaking of twigs captures his attention.

"What are you doing here?"

Ren doesn't need to turn around to know that the Sloth King is standing right behind the tree he's sitting underneath. Only one Grimm could move the earth as it moves and even less be bothered to mess with him after the previous battle. None of the other sloths would even have the courage to come face him other than the king, that much he knows. And the king has been lurking about from the shadows the few times he's spotted it from outside the cabin window.

So it comes to no surprise when the Sloth King stops moving, staying deathly quiet. Caution forces Ren to glance and make sure the king wasn't attempting to attack him, but the Grimm did no such action, only fixing the human a look of reflectiveness. It takes Ren a moment to realize he's not staring at a mirror; the emotionless monster is not him, and is just in fact that, a monster.

Still trusting on the fact his leader hasn't run out of the cabin yet, Ren relaxed on the bark of the tree, not allowing his glare to move away from the Sloth King. But his pink eyes do land on the open crack in its armor from where he pierced the hard bone. Bits of the king's fur peeked out in random directions, slave to the gentle breeze blowing nearby.

Answering Ren's question with silence, the Grimm settles beside him, although more behind the tree. It makes no attempt for anything else and perches itself contently on the side of a tree, hanging onto the wood with the same level of enthusiasm as any other sloth would. The sight unsettles something in Ren's chest and makes him recall things his leader told him. Things that makes the world upside down and everything he knew put into serious question.

Lore.

The bane of Lie Ren's existence.

Ever since Jaune first discovered the dark power, everything's changed. It destroyed the foundations of many things Ren's come to accept. It almost killed—it _did_ kill his best friend. And the ninja doesn't think his leader has come to even realize of what the implications of Lore even means, at least not fully. Although, that might be unfair since Ren, too, is just discovering and putting the puzzle together of Lore.

But Lie Ren's smart.

He never needs all the pieces of a puzzle to see what the image was beforehand. Not like most people. He could always just fill in the blanks needed to finish. Made life much easier since Nora loved to lose things. And that thought forces him back to the matter on hand, the large sloth Grimm hanging onto the tree he leaned on.

 _Lore is the same power of the Grimm._ To Ren that made absolutely no sense. If that was true, then there was one hidden truth that couldn't be ignored! That would mean that—?!

He hears the door open before the king, but the Grimm beats Ren to punch to spot Jaune first. His leader stalks out of the cabin with obvious frustration, and Ren's not the only one who senses that. If the slight tilt of the Sloth King's head and rustle of leaves from the younger sloths are anything to go by.

Hidden by the trees, Ren noticed that Jaune's too distracted to notice most of the Grimm lurking nearby and he finds that odd with his leader's ability to sense other Grimm with his technique called Outer Space. Then again, Jaune did mention that in order for him to sense Aura through Space, he needed the other person to be using Aura. If the influx of Aura wasn't apparent, then he couldn't sense them.

Looking up at the king looking down at him, Ren glared slightly.

Did the same principle apply for the Grimm? If so, then what did that mean? Was his leader only able to sense danger whenever it presented itself? It's only logical. No person with Aura would blindly attack a person or Grimm while not concentrating on their Aura to enhance their strength. It's like bringing a knife to a gun fight.

That was plain suicidal.

Ren's briefly looked down to meet his leader's stare, seeing a mix of emotions buried beneath those cobalt eyes of his. Then he looks away, back at the Sloth King his leader has failed to sense, allowing his mind to adrift. If Jaune could only sense Aura whenever it was being used, then the same logic applied to Lore, by process of elimination of course.

So did that mean that the Grimm lurking nearby weren't concentrating on their power? Did that honestly mean they weren't tempted to attack or provoke any of them? No hostility whatsoever?

The idea seemed to farfetched that Lie Ren had to make sure for the second time today that he wasn't looking at a mirror when he stared up at the emotionless Sloth King. When it blinked down at him, Ren lowered his gaze back to Jaune, following him with his eyes as he walked towards the middle of the clearing. And then his leader created three Gravities to practice with and Ren knew Jaune had every sloth Grimm's undivided attention, king included.

The Sloth King seemed extremely attracted to Jaune's Gravities. And why wouldn't it be? If what Jaune said a few nights before was true, then Lore really is the power of the Grimm. The sight of seeing a human command their power must be throwing the Grimm in one heck of a loop. Hell! It's throwing him in a loop. It's the only reason Ren can see for all confusion that's happening to him lately.

It's the only reason that makes any sense in its own messed up way.

Glancing back up at the Sloth King, Ren notes the Grimm's fascination in Jaune, actually taking the time to get off the tree and stand on the floor. Ren makes no remark about this and instead observes his leader's tense posture as he attempts and fails at his goals, whatever they may be. His shoulders are stressed with self-doubt evident in his glare, and Ren didn't need to be a Grimm to sense his frustrated emotions.

Troubled, Ren found Jaune's hindrance disheartening. He's not like Nora; he knows his leader is neither fearless nor unstoppable. Yet, seeing Jaune so lost when it came to his element worried the emotionless man. Maybe it's just his duties as a teammate, or simply the obligations of being a friend, but Ren found himself walking towards Jaune before his consciousness caught up with him.

That, and the idea behind Lore is too great to simply ignore.

...

A few minutes after Ren walks out, Jaune leaves the cabin after checking up one more time on the two redheads, much to Pyrrha's creepy smile with his partner doing better and Nora still out cold, and heads out for the middle of the clearing. Ren's already out there, sitting beneath a tree to get away from the sun. Their eyes meet for the briefest of moments before his friend looks away, sulking inside the shade.

Jaune doesn't know what to say to him to pull him out of his funk, and luckily he doesn't need to. He's too busy being angry at himself for feeling so useless in the fight with the Sloth King to be a team player. Well, at least not in the sense he's thinking of.

What's the point in having power if he doesn't know how to wield it?

What's the point of having Lore if all it could do was harm his friends and not protect them?

He's about to find out.

Reaching the middle of the clearing, Jaune focused on his Lore, instantly creating three Gravities to accompany him as he practiced in the morning air. He could feel Ren's eyes on him, but pushed aside the sensation in favor of honing his control in order to create an offensive Lore technique that could actually harm a Grimm.

A sword—he needs to be able to create a Lore Blade.

Swirling the orbs around, Jaune practiced more on his control, trying to increase the speed which they moved. Although a good technique to practice with his Lore, the results were more or less than appealing. Sure his control over their speed and distance has improved over time, but not in the way he had hoped. Not in the way he needed his control to be. If he could just find a way to make it worth it, then this dark power and his team's trouble wouldn't be in vain.

Calling a lone Gravity towards his bandaged palm, Jaune willed the orb to hover lifelessly for a moment, glaring hard at the dark mass lying in wait. He makes sure not to have the orb too close to his palm, in fear of collapsing the Lore into his hand. But the entire simplicity of his problem vexed him so.

Here he was, controlling an orb of darkness, the negative side of aura as he's come to learn, and he can't find a way to create a sword. And that's why the problem hurt to look at it. Before—before it wasn't personal! There hadn't been a reason to rush things. Before he just practiced in his own leisure, but after yesterday's surprise attack, Jaune's angry at himself for not being able to fend off against the Sloth King with Ren.

It had never been a race. To discover the properties of Lore had been a fun thing to do. Gravity and Black Hole's discovery had been a pleasant and life-changing experience. Now, however, Jaune's sharply determined to create a sword if it kills him.

So he's back to this.

Back to square one.

Changing this simple Gravity into a sword should be easy to him. Turning a Supernova into his Excalibur wasn't an issue. By now the process was like breathing in so many ways. So why this? Why now? What was he missing from this problem that was holding him back?

It never made any sense to him.

Power wasn't the issue. Control wasn't either. He can always picture and feel the right amount of power and control needed to shape his Lore into a blade. The schematics behind the design were always right in front of him, just out of reach. Out of range for his level of skill, yet, completely right in front of him, mocking him almost.

No matter how much he tried to create the sword, to envision it coming to life in his hands, there's always a slight hitch in his step—a hiccup. Some dark, hidden fear prevented him from fully grasping the power behind his Lore and thus halting his progress by a step. Like there was a struggle inside his soul. But, still, none of that made any real sense to the Arc.

He's already come to accept Lore into his soul! What more did he need to do? What kept him from reaching the next step?

Why was creating a Lore blade so impossible?

Struggling internally, Jaune released Gravity, draining the other two nearby. Without any Aura to test the effects of Lore, he's not too sure how far he could get with practice alone. Aura had been so much easier to practice with. Trees and rocks made for good outlets and training dummies, the occasional Grimm here and there helped, too. Lore, on the other hand, affected Aura. And without some Aura to test Lore's capabilities on, he's stuck practicing on speed and precision alone.

Those only go so far.

Crashing the Gravity down onto the dirt, Jaune watched the orb pick up some nearby pebbles and blades of grass, fascinated at how those objects hovered lifelessly around the dark mass. So calm and collective, not like his thoughts which were scrambled and infinitely boundless with no force to hold them together.

"Need some help?" Glancing over, he finds Ren hovering over his shoulder and Jaune's already willing Gravity farther away from him, not wanting to get his teammate's Aura caught within the gravitational pull.

He grins humorlessly, "Not unless you have some means for me to test this stuff on Aura I don't."

Thinking it over silently, Ren nods in understand and slowly reaches out, looking positively serious at the Lore sphere close by. Then by a calm overriding force—either his or the Gravity—Ren reaches out before Jaune can stop him and feel his Aura being pulled towards the darkness. Instantly his leader is stopping him, shoving Ren away when he spots his friend's Aura being eaten away from Outer Space.

"Ren, what in Monty's Oum are you doing?!" Jaune yells, having watched some of Ren's Aura being pulled into Gravity.

"Helping you," he says plainly, fixing Jaune an interesting glare. "You needed Aura to test your Lore on, and I have Aura. Seems like a win-win plan to me."

"Except for the fact of course _your_ Aura being drained away or quite possibly worse?!"

Ren doesn't let Jaune's crisis divert him, "If it's to help you understand Lore better, then I'm all for it and I trust you."

Even if the gesture is oddly commendable, Jaune would never risk Ren's life, "We can't risk your Aura! What if we get attacked again?"

"I don't think that will be a problem," Crossing his arm, he nudges his head towards the Sloth King lazing nearby underneath a tree, blinking with something akin to amusement.

Though, the gesture is lost to Jaune, completely and utterly lost, "H-How? I didn't even sense him?"

"And that's why I don't think we have a problem. It's been here for days. Watching us. It could've attacked us anytime when your were running on empty," Ren remarked, dusting off the spot Jaune shoved him. "You're gonna need a lot of help and I'm the only one with Aura to spare."

His leader fixes him a glare after regaining his senses and prompts to ignore the Sloth King, "Why are you so interested all of a sudden in Lore?"

"It's got me thinking." That's almost enough of a reason for Jaune to risk their safety... almost. Sigh, "What you said about Lore being the Grimm's power is making me have doubts and I need to confirm them."

Jaune thinks over the negative aspects of Lore and comes to a bold conclusion that's half serious and half joking, "What? That the Grimm are evil?"

"... That they might not be."

The air is so quiet Jaune can hear the leaves on trees rustle to the light breeze. The air makes a sound and nature fills the void. Ren's just giving him this completely serious, stoic stare that ignites all of Jaune's cells in a frenzy of fear and awe.

What he's saying is so crazy! Impossible! Just everything!

"What makes you think that the Grimm aren't evil? They're supposed to be humanity's enemies!" Jaune argues for sanity's sake, but it falls on deaf ears.

"You've written in your Aura notebook that Lore makes you feel hollow inside and that the only way to get rid of this feeling is to have Aura. Nora's even told me this was how she felt when the Lore got into their system. What if," he stares off to the sloth Grimm sleeping in the trees, "What if that's how all the Grimm feel inside? Hollow and cold and all they want to do is fill that emptiness."

"Ren..." Jaune asks slowly. "What are you saying?"

Ren pretends not to hear, staring off to the side where the king watched over them. He might as well be looking into a mirror with how emotionless the _monster_ acted. Never before has he questioned the role he's followed, but there's a first time for everything. And that first time was allowing that Grimm to live when he had the chance to end it, like any other Hunter would've done in a heartbeat. His questions only grew more in numbers each time something unexplainable happened right in front of him.

And they continued to do so without rest.

"Forget about it for now," Ren paused, leveling back with Jaune. "It's just a crazy idea." Jaune doesn't know what to say, so Ren adds more. "Now then, you needed Aura, right?" He extends his arm out, "Take it."

His leader finally regains his bearings and accepts the obvious distraction from the bigger picture. So he calls forth his Gravity, watching the way Ren's Aura reacted to the Lore's presence in grave fascination. All the while, they don't notice the way the Sloth King's eyes observe the way the two powers interact, never once recalling the two wholes cooperating on such a degree of level. Nor does it feel the need to interfere from their power mixing with the humans.

Yet, for the first time in centuries, it doesn't find the need to idly laze away.

Extremely curious at the human that trusted the power of its kind more fiercely than any other ever witness by the Grimm in this forest.

...

Trial and error revealed that the closer Gravity came to Aura, the stronger the pull it had on the power. Jaune seems not to gain any Aura out of this. Closer also meant more apparent side effects when dealing with Lore. Ren experienced to what he explained was feeling cold and lacking reason. His power felt stripped almost and all he wanted to do was keep his Aura locked away. He described feelings that resembled sadness and hopelessness when Gravity came in contact of his skin. He also noted he could still feel his Aura linked to his soul and his semblance as well, just much weaker.

Then it came time to test the power of Black Hole on Aura.

"How does it feel?"

"I feel lost, like all my power has been stolen and I was left behind," Ren flexes his fingers, narrowing his eyes as Jaune's dark covered hand held his Aura away from his forearm. "I cannot access my Aura or even my semblance for that matter. What exactly is happening?"

"I can see my Black Hole trapping your Aura. The light of your Aura seems to be crushed under some strong, dark force." Jaune pauses, watching the Lore compress Ren's Aura in a strong gravitational force that hindered all Ren's Aura. Some part of instincts tell him to pull as he feels a connection with Ren's Aura, "So, you can't use any of your Aura?"

Unlike Gravity, Black Hole didn't drain away Aura, simply compressed it into an airtight vacuum that allowed for nothing to escape. Under the effects of Gravity, Aura still had a chance of fighting back, but under the effects of Black Hole, Jaune could see Ren's Aura being suppressed impossibly together with no chance of escape in sight.

In easier words, Ren's as strong as a person without Aura.

"No."

If Jaune's not mistaken, there's a hint of joy in Ren's voice. It's gone before he could see it, but he definitely heard it. Then Jaune doesn't have to wait anymore to just imagine as Ren tested something with his fingers before a soft laugh escaped his usual neutral friend. Another hearty laugh escapes him as Ren continued to play around while Jaune's Lore held down his Aura.

"My semblance," he chokes, smiling lightly. "I can't feel it."

Jaune almost asked if that was bad, but then Ren's past comes back to haunt him and leaves it alone as Ren looks positively happy for the first time he's ever seen. And he's not the only one experiencing this rare phenomenon. Watching from the trees, the Sloth King observed the human's mask break in something other than anger and sadness with interacting with its own kind's power.

No human has every shown true joy to be around their kind before.

Now that Jaune knows what to look out for, he observes through Outer Space, Ren's Aura being oppressed and his semblance's power being trapped under a strong gravitational pull. A dark outline surrounds all over Ren's body, yet the cold feeling does nothing to rob him of his joy. But Jaune's curious, this was the effect of Black Hole and Lore in general he was discovering. And without so much of a warning, he releases his hold on Ren, watching his semblance break and Aura flare to life.

The outcome is immediate.

Ren's Aura burst forth and his strength returns anew while his semblance escapes his grasp and wreaks havoc on the poor unsuspecting rock in front of them. The warmth returns back to his teammate, but it might as well had stayed dead with the way Ren's face falls from his semblance causing destruction. He can't even feel the heat; feeling like the blood in his veins having turned to ice instead. And the feeling does not escape the king watching from afar.

"Sorry," Jaune apologized soon after, but Ren shakes it off.

"It's fine," he sighs sadly. "I just got a little excited. For a second there, I didn't feel like such a monster."

"You're not a monster," Ren just looks down at the rock he destroyed. "You're not. I don't think that and neither does Nora... Why can't you?"

Ren again pretends to ignore him, finding some solace in Jaune's words. They're meaningful yet obvious, so he only feels slightly better in the inside. In the end, his mask comes back up and Jaune's left to wonder. Wonder if there's anything that can help his friend.

Looking away from the rock, Ren fixes him a question that's been bugging him, "What does Aura look like?"

Jaune takes the distraction, "It's kind of hard to explain."

"Humor me."

Scratching his head, he shrugs unknowingly, "It's weird in a way. No one's is the same. Everyone's Aura is so bright and different. There are many colors. Some bright and others less bright, but they're all bright in their own special way."

Ren seems to find what he was looking for in his answer, having come something close to that from reading Jaune's Aura notebook. Memories of the battle taking place here in the clearing days before are still fresh in his mind and so are the days his leader spent training in their room. They all remind him of one large entity that lived with them all.

Ren looked up, "Your Aura kind of reminds me of our sun."

"The sun?"

Then he looked back down, "Yea, it's very bright and warm to be around and impossible to miss just like your Aura. All your power comes from your Aura like how we need the sun to survive. Even if the sun is a burning ball of heat of destruction and power, we need that power in order to go on living. It's the same thing for Aura. Aura can cause destruction... but it can also give life and heal. That's how your Aura reminds me of the sun."

Jaune grins lightly, "Well... in that sense, Ren. Everyone's Aura is like a sun then. They're all stars I can see in Outer Space."

Shrugging his shoulders alongside him, Ren glanced back to where the Sloth King watched, feeling a sensation crawl on his skin. The time to put his theory to the test finally seems possible, or maybe he just wants a second opinion on the matter at hand.

"You told me before that Lore and the Grimm were oddly similar to us and Aura. That confuses me. If Lore is just another form of Aura, then doesn't that mean that Lore comes from your soul?"

Jaune's caught off-guard from the change in mood, "... Ren?"

"And if Lore is just another form of Aura," Ren adds, not stopping. "Then what does that make the Grimm? What if the Grimm that attacked to you before didn't respond to your strength, but to your Lore? If the power's the same, they probably saw something not worth fighting. Something, something close to kinship?"

"Maybe... it sounds possible. Both times I did happen to use Lore," Jaune shrugs, accepting the idea. "Is there something you're not telling me?"

Ren merely waves it off, "It's just a crazy idea."

To back up his crazy idea, a lone, tiny sloth Grimm slithers by and Jaune jumps back from the sudden sneak attack, ready to fight, but Ren kneels on the floor and the little thing stares at him with a tilt of its head. In the off corner, he could see the king and a few more sloths watching his every move and Ren surprises them, surprises Jaune—surprises himself—and picks up the small Grimm.

An understanding passes between them from the slow blink of their eyes and Jaune watches with acute fascination as Ren calmly hooks the tiny guy over his shoulder like any other larger sloth would. More fascination captures Jaune from the sloth's relaxing posture as it napped lightly on his neck.

"A crazy idea," Ren repeats.

A crazy idea! But one that has strong valid points backing it up. To anybody else— _anybody else_ —and they've crossed Lie Ren as crazy right from the start. But Jaune Arc isn't just anybody. He's the leader of Team JNPR and Ren's close friend. Crazy always seems to tag alongside them. Just like Team RWBY and their love for adventures and wacky hijinks.

Impossible to deny and impossible to look away.

Yet, there are lines somewhere, possibly, "Before I go along anymore with this, I need to ask. Why? What brought this on? Why do you care so much?"

Everything about Lore comes together in one single unity, "Because if I'm right... then that means the Grimm have souls."

Words cannot begin to express what Jaune's feeling. This crazy idea of Ren's wasn't crazy! It was entirely insane! The only reason Jaune hasn't forced Ren to rethink his priorities is because a tiny sloth Grimm napped on his friend's back like it was nothing special. Except it was! By a lot! A whole lot.

"... And if you're wrong?"

There's no malice in his eyes, "Then I'm wrong and nothing changes."

"Ren!" he throws his hands up in frustration. "You can't just spring this up on somebody! This isn't some crazy idea like creating weapons from Aura! This is our very history you're talking about! The whole reason Hunters even exist! Are you telling me that you think we might be wrong about everything?"

"What I'm saying, Jaune," Ren points at the baby sloth Grimm resting on his shoulders. "Is that maybe we should relook at what we call humanity's greatest threat and then maybe take a closer look at ourselves?"

There's no response. No argument. Nothing. Jaune Arc remains deathly quiet at Ren's acceptance and trust in the power of the Grimm. Something he's not ever sure he could possibly do. Beating them into submission was one thing, but trusting them was something else entirely. Trusting the Grimm's power—a thought that's even too crazy for Jaune Arc.

Reading his mind, Ren sighed, "Aura has been the bane of my existence ever since I unlocked my semblance. I've lived most of life detached from emotions because I live in fear of what might possibly happen if I let go for even a second. I'm tired of being scared of my own power. Maybe it's time to reach out to a new power to help me. Maybe Lore can stop me from hurting the people around me."

In a way, Lie Ren learned to control his Aura so he could suppress his power, that's the real reason he had been so taken to Jaune's Aura notes. His friend has long since discarded the light side of Aura to instead dwell into the darkness. Maybe that is why he's so easy to change when the opportunity arose.

Yet, "That's not enough of a reason to trust in the Grimm."

Ren sighed; clearly his leader still didn't get it. "I don't trust the Grimm. I trust you," he pokes at Jaune's Lore. "If anyone could prove me right or wrong, it's you."

Never one to be given direct praise, Jaune grinned cheekily with an embarrassed wave of his hand, "Fine, whatever! Forget I asked! I'll play along with it for now. It's the least I can do after everything I've put you guys through."

"Thanks, Jaune."

"Okay! Let's test this one more time and forget about all this heavy stuff. Trap, Black Hole!"

Feeling his body jerk to a pull of Gravity, Ren blinked with the tiny sloth in tow, "By the way, I've been meaning to ask you. Why do you yell out the names of all your moves? Seems completely counterproductive?"

His leader attitude ignites, "Oh? That! It's an Arc family tradition. My family is full of heroes, and heroes yell out amazing catchphrases. My great-great grandfather and even the Arc's before him yelled out their move's catchphrases as they ran into battle!"

"Your family's weird."

"Yea, they sure are. But I'm stuck being an Arc, so I got to yell out my moves!"

"Well, you could just _not_ yell out your moves," Jaune pretends he didn't hear Ren, looking too focused on his compressed Aura. It doesn't take Ren long to figure out why, "You actually enjoy yelling out your techniques, don't you?"

"Hey, don't knock it till you try it! Next time you're fighting some big, overpowered Grimm, just yell out some totally awesome catchphrase with everything you got, and watch the fireworks fly!"

"I will do no such thing."

The rest of the day passes by uneventful except for the mountain of sloth Grimm that seemed to have built up the courage to approach Ren and want to tag alongside him and laze around the poor guy. Jaune's stuck whether or not he should do something. It's only more confusing when he can't feel any of the Grimm active Outer Space when he's standing so close to them. So by his logic, they were harmless. This only made things ten-times more confusing for him and a lot clearer for his stoic teammate who can't stop staring at the king glaring back at them.

...

Day four into Nora's recovery, and she's doing much better. And by better, Jaune means louder, much louder.

"I'm going to make you some Aura shards to eat before you go back to sleep."

"Can't I do something else? I'm tired of sleeping in bed all day!"

Jaune's not too sure how to answer the oxymoron, so he settles to finish creating another batch of Aura shards while Nora attempted at sitting up—attempted being the key word. When she fails and falls back down with a soft thud, she weakly flails her arms.

"Jaune!" she whines childishly.

"Your Aura is barely recharging as it is Nora," he scolds, finishing up an Aura shard. "It's not safe for you to move around too much. You're safer in here. Look on the bright side, you can talk again."

Not really a bright side, but Jaune never knows when Ren's listening and his unstoppable army of sloth Grimm at his disposal.

"But Pyrrha gets to move around and she has fractured ribs!"

"Pyrrha also has Aura to heal those fractured ribs while you do not. And she can actually get out of bed."

"But—!"

"Nora," Jaune stretched, glaring in a rare form of stern leadership. "No."

Nora's all but ready to fight back, but her Fearless Leader's glare intensifies in strength and all the fight leaves her already weaken soul. So she pouts with a weak fold of her arms in a stubborn _humph_ , and slips deeper into the bed and doesn't fight her leader anymore on the matter.

Somehow she blames Ren for this even as she easily falls back to sleep.

...

Checking up on a sleeping Nora one last time before heading outside, Pyrrha peeks inside the room and her eyes land on the softly snoring Valkyrie. An odd sense of amusement swells in her chest from her teammate's messy layout with her sheets haphazardly thrown everywhere and small pool of drool on her pillow. It lasts another second longer before Pyrrha gently closes the door and makes a beeline for the clearing with a bundle of hers and Jaune's bloody bandages.

Her ribs still hurt and there's a slight wobble in her step, but she's relatively fine as far as she's concern. That days spent in bed helped a bit, but Jaune's Aura shards are what helped immensely. She can see why her friend became a tad bit addicted to those little rock candies.

They're just so electrifying!

Reaching a safe distance away from the cabin without venturing too far away, Pyrrha spotted Jaune practicing with his Gravities across the clearing with Ren surprisingly attending to the combine attention of a cluster of tiny sloth Grimm underneath a shady tree. He didn't seem to mind their presence and Jaune wasn't making a big deal out of it, but he did keep an eye on them time to time.

So it's safe for her to assume that everything was under control—no matter how universally strange it looked to her.

And it did look strange no matter what angle she looked at it.

Giving up on the idea on cracking whatever goes on in her leader's head or the mysteries that seem to follow him, Pyrrha settles beneath her own tree, quickly dropping the bloody bandages on the floor. She settles to ask him later about it and instead lays the bandages out flat on the floor, making extra sure to separate between hers and Jaune's. There's an offbeat sort of sensation on what she's trying to accomplish.

Almost like her idea to manipulate the small trace amounts of metals in blood was a crazy one.

And she almost believes it, just for a split-second, but then she looks up and sees her leader play around with orbs of darkness and Ren caring for a bundle of sloth Grimm. So what did she know?

Crazy is just another word for sane in Team JNPR.

And they weren't too good at being that either.

Playing with the discarded, blood-soaked bandages, Pyrrha ran her fingers gently over the crimson fabric, feeling a faint hum coming from the bloody appendages as her semblance took root. Faint traces of iron wept out to her, pleading for her to hear their cries and command them. Other weaker traces of metals also beckon to her call. Magnesium, chromium, nickel, copper and zinc—Pyrrha could feel them all resting beneath her fingers, begging to be called.

And she wants nothing more than to answer their plea.

...

Ren spends his day bonding with the sloths, learning their secrets to a perfect nap and how to avoid working all together. It comes into heavy play when Jaune points out it's his turn to do the dishes and Ren's no where in sight. And from that day forth, Lie Ren truly felt like a sloth, and even learned what sounds they really made. So next time he could explain to Nora what a sloth really sounds like.

...

Day five and Nora's finally able to leave the bed, almost jumping up with joy the second she tasted fresh air once more. Ren's by her side after Jaune explains that her Aura isn't any longer in crucial condition and that her earlier spark is stronger than ever. None of it mattered to her. All she cared about was moving her legs again, which she finally could.

And the first thing she demands to do with her newfound freedom is to venture outside the stuffy cabin. Even more so when Ren tells her he's got a surprise just for her and Jaune's looking positively intrigued in her future reaction.

Intrigued or not though, when they venture outside the cabin, he keeps her close as Ren walks out towards the forest walls and comes back out with something wrapped around his shoulders a minute later. Even Pyrrha's interested at what might happen next, already knowing what lies behind Ren's back and still coming to terms with it.

Her partner said he would explain later.

And by later, he meant sometime today.

They could all see the curiosity widen in Nora's eyes as Ren stands right in front of her with two black fur covered arms wrapped tightly around Ren's neck. Then, a second later, a plain face pops over Ren's shoulder and stares at the new human standing before it, blinking once and very slowly to the pair of turquoise eyes blinking back at it.

It takes all about three seconds for Nora to react.

"Ahhh!" She lunges forward, leaning closer to the sloth Grimm whose face betrays no emotion to Nora's close proximity. "It's so cute!"

Off to the corner, Ren and Jaune spot the Sloth King watching them and Jaune's Outer Space reveals no hostility coming from the large monster. He still doesn't trust it, but Ren's seemed to completely ignore its existence in favor of Nora's undeniable happiness. Something everyone and the Sloth King take immediate notice to.

Nora's smile grows larger at the tiny Grimm trying to reach forward with its long arms towards Nora from over Ren's neck. After a silent nod of conformation from Ren, she grabs the tiny guy and hugs him tightly, loving it instantly like Ruby and Zwei. They could also see tiny hearts radiating from the strange hug. Strange because it's a Grimm and human, and the laws of nature suddenly fly out the window with Pyrrha along with it.

Enough for her to blink at her leader, "You're gonna have to explain this to me, Jaune."

Jaune offers her a grin, leading her away, "Yea, sure. Just... give me a minute."

"I'm gonna call him Sir Scrabbles. Because he's just so kooky and fun-loving I can just die!" No one in Team JNPR finds any fault with her logic. She looks up to Jaune while hugging the Grimm. "Can we keep him?!"

"Nora..." Jaune sighs and can't look away from the pure happiness radiating from her smile. Smile that _his_ Lore almost destroyed, "You have to promise me that you'll take care of him."

Why can't he just keep his damn mouth shut?

Nora's trapping him in a death hug before scampering off to toss the tiny sloth into the air with no stop in sight. Ren's close by, making sure nothing happens and Jaune still can't sense any hostility nearby, so he pinches his nose, wondering what the hell he got himself and his team in this time.

"Jaune..." Pyrrha urges suddenly and Jaune looks up to the sky, letting his arms dangle.

"C'mon," he motions towards the middle of the clearing. "I'll explain there."

Watching them walk away, the Sloth King returned back to observing the _second_ human who had no problem conversing with its kind. As if the idea of playing with a Grimm didn't surprise her in the least. There's no judgment in that human's eyes. She simply adores its kind with a heartwarming satisfaction that it's never seen before in a human.

Never.

Nora hugged the tiny Grimm closer, "You really are the Sloth King!"

Ren tenses, twitching a little at the title, "I'm the not the Sloth King," he argues, not seeing the tiny horde of other sloth Grimm venturing close to him. "I'm not."

Nora's smile grows only more sneaky as another sloth attaches itself to Ren's leg and then another to the other leg. A third follows alongside his thigh and Ren gives in and picks up the fourth to wrap around his neck.

He glares at her, "This changes nothing."

"Uh-huh!" she smiles knowingly, perching Sir Scrabbles on her shoulder.

Ren acts like he doesn't like Nora's grin, but in reality, he's secretly relieved to find her moving and smiling again. Her Aura may not be up there, but she was getting better by the days and even Jaune said her Aura's no longer under critical condition. That's enough to put a smile on his face.

He's still not sure if he believes in the words he's said about the Grimm, but one look from Nora and her new friend was enough to harden his resolve, if only just for a little. Seeing Nora so happy brought some pleasant, powerful emotions from Ren and for a split-second, just a split-second, his emotions get the better of him and he feels his Aura and semblance shift from his control before he could stop it.

Ren can't stop his semblance from snapping the branches of a nearby tree and has to hastily move before they fall on him and Nora. No one misses the action, not Jaune, Pyrrha, or the hidden Sloth King. Everyone is silently stunned, and before they could reclaim their senses, Ren's already pulling off the sloth Grimm and moving farther away from Nora with an air of defeat around him.

Nora tries to stop him, but he walks away to sit alone a shady tree.

Pyrrha seems confused, Nora looks sadden, and Jaune's conflicted. One second his leader wants to comfort him, but another he wants to stay away, knowing his words can only do so much and Ren might just want to be alone. And Pyrrha's staring at Jaune, adding another list of demands for Jaune to comply with, no choice in the matter.

The Sloth King stands beside Ren in the shadows, peering down at the human who no longer looks over its shoulder to judge it. Memories of the past come back to the haunt the beast; memories of the human being overjoyed that his power had been sealed away. Away from everyone around him, including the new human to join the group that seems oddly attached to him. And that's when the king's ancient thoughts finally align.

The human didn't like his power, especially around his mate and was incapable of creating the same power to suppress his power. Where the light has shined upon him, he has long ago shunned in, preferring to hide in the darkness where all the monsters and its kind dwells. It accepts the light but does not trust it, whereas he trusted the darkness but could not reach it.

A perplexed problem and the king briefly wonder why it cares. Then a tiny sloth comes out from above the trees and slowly climbs on the human's back with no hesitation. The young ones had definitely grown bold in the short time he's been around. Ever since he spared—?!

Gazing down at his chest, the king now remembers why it should care again.

This human allowed it to live where nature demanded he shouldn't. Rules of nature are fierce and cold, and by all means, the king should be ash by now. Not leaning over to watch a youngling play with a threat to their kind. Not finding sympathy where sympathy shouldn't be given.

The Leos wouldn't have spared them the trouble; then again, the Leos and their Monarch were all vanquished. Like all predators, they never stopped fighting and preferred confrontation over resolution. While the sloths stuck to the trees and preferred isolation and distance, avoiding unnecessary confrontation if possible.

Just like the human below it.

Staring up, the king tilted its head at the other two humans arguing, feeling their emotions all over the place. Then it spots the other male take off its hoodie and the king gets an idea.

Gazing back down at the other male, the Sloth King felt the sadness suppressed deeply inside the human and settles to fix that. For the debt it owes to him for not only sparring it but getting rid of the Leos and their Monarch. If this human trusted the dark powers their kind possessed and didn't fear away when given the most optimal chances, then it's time for that debt to be repaid.

Gratitude earned, indeed.

...

A few minutes earlier, Jaune stops Pyrrha in the center of the clearing, thinking how exactly he should phase his next few words. Though, Pyrrha looks like she won't take anything less than the honest truth.

Fair enough.

Seeing Nora play around with Sir Scrabbles, Pyrrha can't help but ask, "And what exactly is going on here? You mind explaining it to me."

"I prefer not," she rarely glares at him; this is one of those times. "Ren's got some crazy idea that the Grimm aren't all evil and have souls. And he wants my help to prove him wrong or right."

Pyrrha actually laughs at this, "That's insane, right Jaune!" When he doesn't laugh, she stops. "Right... Jaune?"

He sighs, not looking her way, "I don't know what to believe anymore. At first it was insane... but..."

Pyrrha's quickly on the defensive, "What do you mean, you don't know what to believe in anymore? The Grimm," she points at the sloths by Ren and Nora, "are evil! They're humanity's greatest threat. That's why we came to Beacon! That's why you snuck into Beacon! To fight against those soulless monsters and protect humanity!"

"That's another thing," Jaune cuts in. "You called the Grimm soulless. Who said the Grimm don't have souls?! From what I can tell, all the Grimm have Lore. I can see it! I can _feel_ it!"

"But..." Pyrrha stops, allowing Lore's secrets to sink in. "What's your point?"

"It's what Ren said that got to me," he adds sadly. "If Lore is just another form of Aura, then doesn't that mean that Lore is part of the soul? If so, what does that say about the Grimm? How can you know if something doesn't have a soul?"

He stops to see Nora playing with Sir Scrabbles, feeling an odd mix of his instincts colliding with his intelligence and he's not so sure which side to root for. " _Who_ decides something like that?"

They're argument is cut short when a tree branch breaks apart and Jaune spots Ren's semblance being the main cause of its destruction. He doesn't need to guess what's going to happen next. Ren's already stalking away from Nora, taking solace in a tree far away from them.

Everyone's not too sure how to feel, but Pyrrha brings him back, "What was that?"

"Ren's semblance," Jaune answers plainly, fixing her with a shrug. "You'll have to ask him or Nora about it. It's not my place to tell."

An awkward silence fills the air and eventually the heat finally gets to Jaune and he removes his hoodie. Some days were just too hot to be wearing winter clothes. A crime of passion, sure! But Jaune Arc can't remember the last time he wasn't wearing a second layer of clothing.

"I still don't know," Pyrrha cuts in again, sounding extremely doubtful. "Humanity vs. the Grimm has been the story we've been told for generations."

Jaune focuses on the way Nora's sloth tries to comfort her with a hug, "Well... maybe there's a part of the story we're missing."

Without any warning, a large shadow towers over them and Jaune and Pyrrha barely turn around to see the Sloth King reach down and pluck Jaune's hoodie away from his hands. They're too stunned to move at how the large Grimm somehow got the drop on them before it inspects the hoodie and then walks away while calling back a few sloths to accompany it.

By the time the sloths and their king disappear into the forest, Jaune's anger burns as he runs after them, "Hey! Come back here with my hoodie!"

A few minutes later, he returns from the forest, hoodie-less and with twigs sticking out of his hair. His team stands by, each looking oddly sympathetic and unable to contain their amusement.

"It's kind of ironic that you can't catch a couple of sloths." Pyrrha giggles.

"Damn trees! I can't wait until they becomes pieces of scrap paper!"

"Relax, Jaune, it's just a hoodie. You could always get another one." Ren stated easily, resting on a tree. This whole theft fiasco seemed to have pulled him out of his funk.

"My sisters made me that sweater!"

Nora giggles, "Your sisters made you a sweater that has a bunny logo on it? I don't know why you would want it back."

"You just don't understand!"

Ren patted poor Jaune on the back, "You're right. We don't understand. And we don't want to."

"I hate guys so much right now."

"Aw," Nora cooed with Sir Scrabbles poking Jaune in the nose. "We love you, too!"

...

Day six arrives pretty fast with the entire team eating breakfast. Nora's doing much better and Sir Scrabbles seems to like Ren's pancakes, another big smiley face in Nora's book. Pyrrha's still trying to wrap her head around yesterday's conversation, Ren's checking things off his crazy theory, and Jaune's busy sulking about his missing hoodie.

In the end, a perfectly normal breakfast for Team JNPR!

Regaining his pride, Jaune pulls his head off the kitchen table, coughing into his mouth to attract his team's attention, "Classes start in two days and we need to head back to Beacon. So where leaving later today."

There are two nods and a soft whine for his answer and Jaune accepts them and lets his head rest back on the table. Today he needed to only create a few Aura shards for Nora and Pyrrha, so he feels more alive, yet he's dead inside without his precious hoodie.

Irony never hurt so badly.

Finished eating his breakfast and curious to venture out and run into the Sloth King one more time, Ren heads out the door, "I'll be outside for a moment."

A silent agreement passes between the team after the girls were filled in on what happened the few days prior when they were trapped inside the house. They all know he's going to go sit under a tree and converse with the Sloth King. Nora's the only one who can't seem to stop herself from bouncing in her seat at the implication.

She keeps calling Ren the new Sloth King. Ren always disagrees and Pyrrha and Jaune are too confused with mixed emotions to add their own word into the mix.

It's not too long before Jaune heads out as well to check up and see if the darn king actually did return. This might be the only chance he could recover his lost hoodie before the moment is lost to him forever. He did not want to call his sister and explain to them he got his hoodie stolen.

Leaving the cabin, Jaune runs up and finds a pair of sloth Grimm extending their arms out to what looks like measuring Ren's arm length. A few more move up and down his body, using more than one to check his relative size and height, and Ren's left standing there like an uncomfortable statue.

Jaune's the first to ask, "What are they doing?"

"I'm not sure." A sloth seems satisfied at whatever it was doing and made a high-pitched call that resonated between more sloths in the forest they couldn't see. "They've been at it since I walked outside."

"... Should I be concerned?"

They're gone before Ren answers, pretty happy at their strange work and the males of Team JNPR are just left there to wonder what the hell that was all about. Something tells them to forget about it. Some mysteries can't be solved with simple brainpower and need to be left alone to unravel themselves. Such is the way of the universe.

"Hey," Ren pokes. "Let's practice more on your Lore."

Jaune nods at the easy distraction and not finding the need for words as he unleashes Black Hole on Ren's Aura, pulling him closer from a few feet away. Not only does Black Hole trap Aura, but if Jaune pulled hard enough, he could rob Aura from the person and pull it out of their body as well.

He doesn't keep it since his Lore destroys any Aura that enters his system, but being able to drain away the other person's Aura really does make fighting a Hunter all the more useful. Not like Jaune Arc ever expected to fight another Hunter, but the option always did seem nice. And testing the length and gravitational pull Lore had on someone from a distance was always fun to poke around in.

Other than Lore training, Pyrrha's off doing her own thing and Nora's spending an ungodly amount of time with Sir Scrabbles. The day ends fairly quickly with the sun almost beginning to set. By this stage of the day, Jaune issues for them to get ready to leave. They need to be in Beacon by tomorrow to rest before school starts again.

Packing their bags, Pyrrha grabs that dictionary from before, finding the object too valuable to simply leave behind. Ren packs light, most of his food gone from serving his friends their meals. Nora doesn't have much, letting Ren carry it as her new pet rested on top of her head. And Jaune creates a few more Aura shards and forces Nora to eat them so she can make the journey back home.

They exit the cabin, ready to go, and run smack right into a horde of countless sloth Grimm and their king, standing in front of them all. Both Jaune and Pyrrha act a little defensively to the tiny army, but it's Ren who walks up to the king and stares at the eyes that might as well have been a mirror.

"Goodbye."

The Sloth King almost nods to Ren and then lifts up its massive paw for him to see. In it is Jaune's hoodie and he accepts it and tosses it back to Jaune.

"Hey!" Jaune cries, hugging his sweater in content. "I got my hoodie back! Now my sisters won't kill me!"

Smiles are all around, and before Ren could return back to his friends, the Sloth King lifts up its other massive paw to reveal a second article of clothing hidden inside. Unlike Jaune's sweater, this one is pitch black, lacking any color of sorts and appears to be like a cloak. Then the Sloth King drops it into Ren's hands before poking him lightly in the chest with its massive claws as a silent indication that it was meant for him.

Ren doesn't know what to say—none of them do!

He barely even has time to realize that the chink in the Sloth King's armor was messing a large amount of its Grimm fur. And they're gone before he could utter out maybe a _thank you_ or something else more appropriate.

When they're finally gone, Nora comes up running right after, plucking the thing out of Ren's hands. A twinkle forms in her eyes and Sir Scrabbles makes a tiny yelp sound.

"Aw! They made you a cape!"

"It's more of a cloak if anything." Pyrrha counters, sliding up behind Nora. She grabs the strange piece of clothing, running her fingers smoothly over the material and is entirely dumbfounded. How odd? "What's it held by? There is no stitching of any kind."

"Lore," Jaune answers suddenly with conviction. His eyes are drawn solely to that cloak they're holding and fear grips his soul.

Nora blinks, "Come again?"

"Lore." Jaune repeats, narrowing his eyes at the constant, endless influx of Lore radiating from the cloak in a pitch of darkness. "It's covered in a constant amount of Lore?"

Testing this and knowing the properties of Lore, Pyrrha tries to pull the cloak apart with all her might, but Jaune sees her efforts are in vain. A strong gravitational force holds that cloak together, stitching not required.

Pyrrha gives up trying to tear the cloak apart, "How did they make this?"

"The Sloth King was missing some of its fur," Ren brings up, taking the cloak out of Pyrrha's hands. A strange sensation overcomes him and he's tempted to actually put the thing on. "Perhaps they found a way to press their fur together to create such a thing."

Pyrrha looks toward Jaune, "Is that even possible?"

Jaune throws his hands up, "Why are you looking at me? I don't know everything about Lore or even Aura for that matter. I'm just as lost as you are. I didn't even know Grimm knew what a cloak looked like!"

"Maybe that's why they took your hoodie," Ren spreads out the cloak, watching as the sun's light not reflect off the material. "So they could get a fundamental grasp on what clothing looked like."

"And why those Grimm were so eager to check how long your arms and body were." Jaune adds. "So they could get the measurements right." Silence fills the air, but Jaune doesn't allow it to last too long, "They made that exactly for _you_... why?"

Ren shrugged, "Only one way to find out." And he's putting on the cloak before anyone can stop him.

It fits perfectly to his body and covered a good portion of his entire being. A collar stood up that defied gravity, covering a good part of his face, only allowing his emotionless eyes to peak over and expressions to become unreadable. The sleeves went all the way down to his wrist, a little more than that in fact. The opening closed slowly on its own, from what Jaune could tell was more Lore acting up. And it reached down past his knees.

Ren gave them a sideways glance, hiding behind the dark clothing, "Well? Anything."

Pyrrha and Nora are busy taking in Ren's new appearance while Jaune's watching the Lore from the cloak suppress Ren's Aura in a vice grip that was _almost_ as powerful as Black Hole. Yet, he could see remnants of his Aura move freely between the higher layers of Lore, just not able to escape the confines of the cloak.

"Try using your Aura," Jaune demands, waiting to see the results. His teammate does and the effects are obvious.

Trapped by a strong force, Ren's eyes widen slightly when he feels his Aura respond strongly to his weak command. Then he tries with all his might, and feels his control over his Aura astonishing. It's like nothing he's ever felt before. The surprise actually catches him off-guard and he feels his semblance slip free... only to not do anything.

He can feel it and Jaune can see it.

The Lore compelled his Aura closer to his body, giving him a higher level of control and his semblance can't escape from the Lore's pull! Any Backlash from Ren's Misfortune semblance is completely suppressed unless Ren directly allowed controlled its target.

They all watch as Ren slowly lifted up his arm to gaze down at his palm. The girls can't see it, but Jaune spots Ren calling forth his semblance, looking completely captivated by the rare sight of his semblance being totally in his control for the first time in years.

Then he's looking back at his friends with the collar opening up on its own from the base of Ren's emotions. A tiny smile becomes apparent, followed by a light chuckle that sends waves of warmth to them, mostly Nora.

"I have complete control over my semblance." Ren laughs, enjoying the way the cloak canceled out his semblance responses to his free emotions. "This is incredible!"

Amazing or not, Ren catches himself, stopping the sudden laughing. Years of controlling his emotions isn't exactly an easy habit to break, yet no one can deny the air of happiness surrounding them all. Jaune personally thinks the strange Grimm cloak has something to do with this, and leaves that idea alone for another time.

Nora's already running up to Ren, jumping up to hug her childhood friend, who actually returns the hug with almost equal vigor. Jaune and Pyrrha on the other hand, can't stop wondering how this came to be. Illogically, life didn't seem to make sense. Logically, it didn't matter.

"I'm just gonna chalk this one up as a win," Jaune eventually says, figuring he could examine the cloaks features another time.

"I still don't get what's happening."

Jaune sighed, "Long story short. Ren's semblance has been the cause of emotional baggage for years. He just got himself a golden ticket and this is the first time I've seen the guy smile without holding back. Ask Nora more about it. I'm sure she'll tell you."

Pyrrha nudges his shoulder, "So you're not the least bit curious?"

He grins, watching Ren's Aura interact in an almost positive light with the Lore, "Oh! I am! I am most definitely interested in that cloak. But for now..." he trails.

"We're going to chalk this one up as a win," Pyrrha finishes, unable to contain her smile anymore.

A win by the Sloth King, a leader of a group of sloth Grimm, something that makes Ren's crazy Grimm theory sounding all the more powerful.

...

The sun's already set by the time they make it back to Beacon's courtyard. Most of the students have already turned in for the night and the moon shines brightly upon them. Tomorrow's the last day of their break before their second semester starts again and Jaune breathes a breath of relief at finally being home after their hectic break.

Jaune grins, leading them back to their room for some sleep and relaxation.

Somewhere along down the road, they each came back from this training trip stronger and with more to show for it. Surpassing their expectations and setting to achieve new, higher goals before the start of the Vytal Tournament. Trust between them has grown twice as strong. Strength has been rewarded in its own special way. And knowledge has been revealed from the ashes.

This time Jaune Arc knows he can be the leader Team JNPR desperately needs. And nothing is going to stand in there way.

Watch out Remnant! This year's Vytal Tournament will be one to never forget!

* * *

 **Author Notes:** I don't believe in having two Author Notes. Volume Two Arc is finally here!


	14. Flint

**Disclaimer:** I own nothing of RWBY.

* * *

 **Flint**

 **By: Imyoshi**

Chaos—a powerful, yet simple word meaning absolute disorder and sheer confusion with unpredictably as its key component to waver everything and anything it so pleases.

Absolute chaos breeds only more chaos.

Nothing good could ever come from it.

So when chaos meets harmony, the world loses anything that makes even the tiniest bit of sense.

"And this is where you'll be sleeping, Sir Scrabbles!" Nora cooed adoringly, hugging the sloth Grimm cheek to cheek. The Grimm merely blinked, emotions hidden behind those blood eyes of its. "My bed is extra, _extra_ soft! Softer than any of those pesky trees back at Emerald Forest!"

Listening to Nora gush over her new pet, the rest of Team JNPR begin to unpack from their return from Emerald Forest, tired from the long hike. The only one who still had any energy seemed to be Nora and her never-ending escapade to teach Sir Scrabbles all about the finer things of living at Beacon. It's definitely not something normal for them, but the situation still borderlines on a nice rarity that comes from the antics of Team JNPR.

Ren and Jaune are the first to finish unpacking, having packed the lightest compared to their female counterparts. Besides, their minds are on more dire matters than folding and not mixing their boxers with their shirts. Like Ren's mysterious Lore cloak that defies the thing called logic and reason. Mostly it's the cloak.

Standing in the middle of their room, Jaune had a grip on Ren's sleeve, trying to feel the Lore out under Outer Space with Ren still wearing the article of clothing. His Aura notebook is ready to take notes and Ren's curious to read and interpret them. Pyrrha herself is watching from her bed, having let her hair fall away from her ponytail, interested in the way Jaune's eyes had a sharp sense of resolve.

"How do you feel?"

Ren blinked, comparing the feeling of Jaune's Lore to this cloak, "Different. I feel cold, but not as cold as when you tested your Lore on me. It's an almost pleasant type of coldness."

Jaune nods, thinking back to his experiences with Lore and Nora's recount to having Lore in her system. No matter what the outcome, Lore robbed away heat, or better yet, replaced it. So it's safe for the Arc to theorize that Lore's a naturally cold power, strange as that might be. Then there's the key difference between his Lore and Ren's Lore.

Next question, "How's your Aura?"

A light smile appears on Ren's face, "Better. Much better. Before, I had a pretty good grasp over my Aura from all the years of training to control it, but now I can control my Aura to new levels I've never imagined. It's a whole new experience. I feel stronger."

Thinking it over, Jaune writes down what he assumes are the properties of the cloak, adding extra notes from his view in Outer Space. From what he can see, Ren's Aura is compressed under the same weight as his Black Hole, just not as strong. It's lesser than Black Hole's gravitational pull and greater than Gravity's. Essentially allowing him more flexibility to channel his Aura than he ever could since the Lore acts as a barrier to suppress the Aura tight to Ren's soul, yet none of the repercussions like having his Aura drained.

Simply marvelous!

While Jaune's interested in everything Aura and Lore, taking notes left and right in a speed that almost rivaled Pyrrha's, Ren's conflicted in the inside, even against his rare happy exterior and amazing attitude.

The effects of the cloak are all new to him. His emotions are scattered at the implications of this article of clothing. On one hand, Ren could feel his Aura compressed and under his control with his semblance bound completely to his soul, the one wish he's had for years, yet on the other, it's made of Lore, the very power that almost took Nora away from him.

Can he accept this dark power so easily? Should he? The matter's all so confusing in less of an ironic sort of way, and more just ill lucked. However, a tiny squeal of joy shifts his attention and one look from Nora hugging Sir Scrabbles close to her chest is all the conformation the ninja needs.

This cloak was given to him as a gift, be a great dishonor to simply toss it away.

Rubbing his chin, Jaune tried to think of what else to ask of Ren before a thought pops into his head, "Can you try to focus on your Aura? I want to see how the effects differ in Outer Space and Space."

Ren does and the effects are varied. Under Space, Jaune can't feel Ren's Aura at all. He can see his pinkish Aura mix alongside the Lore, turning into a slightly darker variant of pink. Then under Outer Space, Jaune can feel the Lore's pressure weighing down on with a constant force. Unlike normal Space, this force didn't fluctuate and remained a constant. So in a way, Ren's Aura has been replaced with Lore. At least for as long as he's wearing the cloak.

Writing down some quick notes, Jaune paused, biting the end of his pen, wondering what else to test. Nothing much comes to mind except seeing Ren actually fight. Aura acts differently when fighting, responding to the needs of the body and soul compared to simple training. Maybe something odd would happen if he tried fighting with the cloak on?

Pushing those thoughts aside, he's got one more question, "Can you create an Aura sphere with your newfound control?"

Ren glares a little, stretching out his hand. He tries to concentrate, but nothing happens. Even with his new found concentration, there's only so much he can do. Both he can feel it and Jaune can see it. No matter how much Aura or control he has, the fact of the matter is, Lore's main properties are to hold Aura back, immobilizing it. Makes only sense that Ren can't freely create an Aura sphere when the gravity's simply making the matter impossible.

 _Shut_!

I think that's all we can get for now." Jaune finishes, placing away his Aura notebook into his bag. He sheds off his sweater, grinning at all the new discoveries, "Until we see how it works in a fight, we've pretty much got the gist of what it can do."

Done, Ren's pretty much ready to sleep, exhausted from just everything. The fight, the near-death experience, the Sloth King, Lore, just _everything_! Everything has drained the energy out of the lazy man, pushing him to the brink, but now it was time to finally rest. Rest away the troublesome worries of life.

Feeling the Lore react to his needs, the collar to the cloak suddenly opens up from the sudden lack of gravity needed; eventually lowering down until it opens up completely, freeing Ren from its hold. The mechanics behind the cloak opening up may be lost to them, but the idea isn't so confusing. Emotions always did play a heavy part in Aura and even Lore. Perhaps the cloak responded to Ren's emotions?

It's something Jaune and Ren already noted for later testing.

Placing the cloak down on his bed, he doesn't see Nora's hand reach out and yank it. By the time he's finished changing for bed, not wanting to sleep in his dirty and sweat covered clothes like usual, he's missing one cloak. The culprit is found easily enough when she's hums wistfully, lounging inside Ren's attire from atop her bed with Sir Scrabbles peeking out from behind her head.

Her smile is grand from wearing the cloak two-sizes too big for her.

"This is so comfy!" Nora lifts up her hands, which can't be seen because the sleeves are far too long. Ren panics for a split-second, not liking the idea that Nora's wearing the Lore cloak, but stops himself when Nora's face lightens up. "And it's so soft in the inside!"

Confused, Ren eyes his leader who is watching from the side. He knows he's more puzzled on checking Nora's Aura than anything else, wary on the fact that Nora's in direct contact with Lore after her first encounter, but no panic reaches Jaune's face. Fascination overcomes him actually, driving his leader to level a glare under his critical eye. Slowly he relaxes his tenseness, grinning at the worried man.

"It was definitely made for _you_." Jaune observes, moving up to poke Ren on his shoulder. "The Lore's unable to grab onto Nora's Aura since it's looking like the size isn't matching up. It's kind of funny, actually. On one part, her Aura's too close to the cloak, and on the other, it's too far away. She's too small for the Lore to grab onto."

Thinking back to how the sloth Grimm had been measuring his arms, legs, torso, and pretty much every aspect of his body, the news brings a pleasant sigh of relief to him. "That's good."

Leaving Ren to pry the cloak from Nora's hands, Jaune takes out the notebook to write that quick note down before jumping on his own bed. He lays flat on the mattress, staring up at the dust particles dancing around his vision, thinking about the upcoming Vytal Tournament. His vision and thoughts are then clouded by waves of red hair raining down over him with a smile hidden in the center.

"What are you thinking of Jaune?" Pyrrha pressed, having slipped into her sleeping attire. Somewhere in the background she can hear Ren and Nora fight over the cloak.

Regarding her question, Jaune blows away a stray lock of her hair, never sitting up, "The Vytal Tournament. Can you believe it's only four weeks away?"

Pyrrha frowned, moving to sit on her leader's bed, "Are you nervous?"

Jaune blinked, not understanding, "Shouldn't I be?" Smiling at her foolish leader now, Pyrrha can't help but laugh, "What? What's so funny?"

"You!" she giggles into a fist, eyes bright and alive. A spark ignites her very soul, making her wonder how Jaune could be so clueless at time, "How can you be nervous for a silly little tournament, after all we've been through? After all the progress you've made on your own? After our fight with the Leos and their king."

This time Jaune does sit up, unable to believe Pyrrha's words, "How can you be so calm about this? It's only four weeks away?! If I lose—!"

She's only laughing more, eventually stopping to grab his shoulders to ease his tense muscles, "Jaune, I know you're going to win. You'll do fine. I have no doubt in my mind that you can win." Her smile grows brighter, putting every star outside in the night sky to shame, "Because I believe in you completely."

There's irony in her words. She knows it. He knows it. Neither of them says it.

"You do?" Pyrrha hums lightly, nodding her head at her frozen leader.

Awestruck, Jaune's emotions settle down and he's looking away shyly, not knowing how to take the sudden faith he's been given. It's one thing to say they'll believe in him after he risks his own safety for theirs, but to have unwavering belief in him… not even his parents gave him that. No one has ever given Jaune Arc their complete trust before.

But the smile Pyrrha's giving him is too honest and sincere to be anything but.

Not knowing what to say, Jaune stumbles onto the first words he can think of, "You're hair's very beautiful when it's not tied up." He quickly gets up, missing Pyrrha's blush. "Ah! I think I could use some fresh air!"

Racing out, Pyrrha's left to stop the blood rushing to her cheeks. It's great practice to stop the iron from moving, but it simply _wasn't_ cooperating. She has to wait for the heat to wash away on its own before she realizes there has been an audience. An audience that's been strangely quiet from last she's checked after remembering their earlier struggle.

Turning around, she's come to settle her sights on Nora who's wrapped inside Ren's cloak with Ren inside it, sitting on her bed, arms wrapped around her midriff with Jaune's Aura notebook tucked securely between his fingers. His eyes are focused solely on the notebook, disregarding the two females in the room for Jaune's notes on Lore with his head rested comfortably on Nora's and Sir Scrabbles perched on his own. Meanwhile, Nora's sporting a goofy grin that melted those pesky butterflies swarming her stomach.

Looks like they came to a compromise for the cloak?

Tilting her head, Pyrrha's lost, "Nora... what?"

Nora presses herself deeper into the hold, melting simply into the embrace. Her eyes are lost and she sees no reason to find her way back, "I'm warm."

Pyrrha's about to ask another question but Ren tries to get himself more comfortable, leaning back a little on the bed with one arm wrapped snuggly around Nora's stomach and her leaning onto his normally clothed chest. Except it's not, he's only wearing a pair of sleeping shorts because his clothes are covered in too much dirt and grime.

The closeness is nothing new to him. Nora's always been the hugging type. This is just the first time he's ever gone shirtless. So Lie Ren sees nothing strange about his hold, easily okay at the idea of sharing his personal space with Nora in order to reach a compromise of sorts. He's even let his ponytail free, eyes trapped on Jaune's notebook and scattered wildly.

Pyrrha can't help but smile sadly at the girl trapped in the embrace, wondering how the hell she's avoiding passing out. The cereal girl's not blind, Ren got some muscle from wielding Nora's hammer after their bomber's little stunt in Professor Goodwitch's class and like Nora's pointed out time and again, he's indeed handsome. That and his new found confidence and strong devotion has pretty much turn Nora into putty in his hands.

Weak and losing herself, Nora turns to lay her head on his chest, arm resting across his torso, "Ren?"

He doesn't look up from the notebook, "Hn?"

"I'm sleepy," she yawns, finally feeling the day's activities wearing down on her.

He lowers the notebook, finally looking down a smidge, giving Nora a light smile, "Okay. Go to sleep then. I'm about to turn in as well."

Pyrrha giggles off to the side as that rare smile of his does Nora in, crashing the girl all the way down to sleep land. Poor Nora. She fought a valiant battle, a valiant—hopeless battle. Some might even call that a victory. Pyrrha sees that as Nora's total surrender.

Smiling wistfully at her poor yet lucky friend, Pyrrha stares off to the side where Jaune had left in a hurry, wondering if her leader is going to be gone for long. Her answers comes a few minutes later when Jaune walks in, declares it's lights out, and heads to bed without so much as another word. Everyone but her is out in minutes.

Pyrrha then spends another half hour awake; playing with the strands of her red hair that has somehow received a compliment from Jaune. Curiosity grips her, not letting go. There's a tug in her chest at just thinking about Jaune's stunned face, wondering the past her leader's had. When she finally falls asleep, her dreams are filled with metals and the color red and how those things have yet to let her fall.

...

Morning comes faster than Team JNPR expected, so much earlier that even Pyrrha Nikos is considering closing the blinds to block away the sun's evil rays for another hour or two of slumber. Those two weeks in Emerald Forest kind of spoiled the team, having the comfort to sleep in a cabin where the trees blocked out most of the sun's rays in the morning due to their high height. Of course any one of them could simply get up and close the blinds, but that would require actual work. Real, physical work!

Defeated, the team slowly rises up from their slumber with Jaune being the first to get up. Nothing new there. His Aura practically rises with the sun, but he's still the second laziest in the team, only behind Ren. Pyrrha's usually second with Nora being the first always out of bed, full of energy that defied logic.

Jumping out of her bed—which Ren's still sleeping in—Nora grins at the sunlight, damn happy to be moving. Her memories of being confined to her bed still haunt her, and she never wants to be immobilized like that again. Never! Life's too great to be wasting away in bed. No matter what other lazy people thought.

Speaking of wasting away in bed, Nora turns around, ready to shake a snoozing Ren with Sir Scrabbles still perched on the top of his head, but stops to giggle at the sight. He's still shirtless with the cloak having covered a good portion of his body, much to her envy, but she couldn't remember the last time she saw Ren without his ponytail.

Parts of Ren's hair lay scattered all over her bed, almost actually masking Sir Scrabbles from sight since her pet lacks any bony features except for its claws and tiny two rib skeleton frames peeking from its underbelly but they're practically impossible to even see or feel. Sir Scrabble is just so adorable that she can just hug it all day and never let go!

Grinning, Nora jumped on Ren's stomach, waking up her childhood friend from his slumber in a familiar form. A soft _ugh_ is what she gets as a reward, knowing Ren's too far use to her jumping on him in the morning. It matters not to her, just gives her the perfect reason to wake Ren up and sit on his lower torso with her hands pressed to his chest, waiting for him to notice her.

"Wakey! Wakey! Ren!" she sings, missing this feeling after being forced into a bed for a week. "It's morning! Time to get up, lazy butt!" Ren responds by lifting up an arm and using it to shield his eyes from the morning rays. Nora only pesters him more, poking him on the forearm. "Get up!"

Lifting his arm to glance from the shadows, Ren's pink eyes illuminate in the darkness, "Nora?"

"Yes, Ren?"

"Go back to sleep."

She shakes her head, "Nuh-uh! It's time to get up! I'm hungry!" a soft growl catches their attention and Sir Scrabbles is opening its tired eyes to stare at Nora and she's plucking the Grimm off Ren's head, cradling the tired Grimm in her arms. "Aw! Did I wake you? I'm sorry! I know how much sloths like their rest. You can go back to bed, Sir Scrabbles."

From off to the side, Ren glares at the sloth Grimm as he gets up, feeling intense envy that the darn Grimm gets to sleep in while he's stuck waking up. Pyrrha and Jaune are right behind him, use to using Nora as the team's own personal alarm clock. The day's only starting, but Ren has a feeling it's going to be a long one indeed. Lady Luck must've had some plans ready.

Sitting up, he grabs the cloak and thinks it over once before hanging up the article of clothing for later use. He's not Ruby, he can't just go wearing the thing over his school uniform and hope the Professors don't care. Too much drama for a guy who avoids the word like the plague, but then he stops before closing the closet, feeling a pull from the clothing. Either from the power of gravity behind it or his own selfish needs, he's not too sure. Maybe even a little bit of both if he's truly honest with himself.

Narrowing his eyes, Ren gets dressed in his uniform and places the cloak over his shoulders with the collar opened and the sleeves dangling. He doesn't even need to pin it down or nothing, fascinated by the power of Lore holding down the cloak to his shoulders by the force of gravity and all its magic. Such power is still new to him. Such power is still _even_ new to his leader.

When he stands, it drapes over his body, almost closed but not, following and responding to Ren's emotions like how the Grimm do towards humanity. The power still amazes him, especially its power to control his Aura and semblance. Even now, he still feels his control greater, just not as great compared to having his arms hidden in the sleeves and cloak completely closed.

Across from him, Jaune's yawning, unpacking his stuff he forgot to do yesterday after leaving the room in a hurry. There's still a few of his clothes he's forgot to unpack, and little knickknacks here and there. And when he flips the bag around, a single Aura shard falls and shatters on the floor.

"Oh?" he's honestly surprised. "I thought Nora ate all those?" Jaune sighs, running a hand through his hair. "Great, now I'm stuck picking up the pieces."

Kneeling down, Team JNPR's surprised when Sir Scrabbles scrambles out of Nora's arms and plops down onto the floor where the Aura fragments lay. They're even more surprised when the sloth Grimm starts picking up the shards, tilting its head at the glowing fragments with acute fascination and begins eating them, making little sounds of content that melts Nora's heart.

No one knows what to say until Nora leans down to scratch Sir Scrabbles behind its neck, "Does my little sloth like Aura rocks? Well don't you worry, Jaune's gonna make you some every morning! A growing sloth needs his food!"

Jaune's too perplexed to even bother fighting that declaration, captured at the sight before him. A Grimm eating an Aura shard, and actually _liking_ it? Everything about this has to be noted for later, under impossible and next to dumbfounding. More importantly, he's severely interested at how hungry the little guy's for Aura. Only moments ago did Sir Scrabbles look only tired and oblivious to the word.

Reaching into his bag, he sighs when he finds it empty. "Looks like that was my last one? I'm all out of white Dust crystals. Who's up to hitting Vale tonight for more?"

"Didn't you buy like a hundred of them?" Pyrrha asked, kneeling down beside Nora to pet Sir Scrabbles. "How could you be out already?"

Jaune scoffs, throwing his hands up, "Well Nora here eats them like pancakes! Then I had to use a lot to fix you guys. And I broke a lot trying to figure out to store Aura into them. They went by pretty darn fast. I think I only ate one between all of them."

"Ah, Jaune," Pyrrha stands up, shaking her playfully head at her leader's problems. Problems that seem to only center around him and him alone, "I'll be happy to accompany you to Vale later."

"Me too!" Nora adds with Ren sighing in the background. A yes for Nora meant a yes for Ren as well. No use arguing the inevitable.

Glad, Jaune looks down at Sir Scrabbles picking up the remaining fragments of the Aura shard, still conflicted at seeing the Grimm consume what is essentially pure Aura, or even more so, _his_ Aura. That and the idea of Aura shards are making him rethink parts of his strategy when it comes to the little gems.

They're great, there's no getting around that. They're practical and lifesaving when it really matters. Useful for prolong fighting and even Aura training. But, should he be using them? Now that he thinks about, he's basically creating Aura shards to consume when he's running low on Aura. A foolproof plan that doesn't really have any downsides he could see, yet, does he want to rely on that plan for when he's low on Aura?

Wouldn't it be much easier to merely increase the amount of Aura reserves he has so that problem never surfaces?

He's not clueless. Jaune Arc knows his reserves probably outrank a lot of students and maybe even a few low rank Huntsmen. Not too hard to imagine with his control over Aura and how much each of his techniques require, especially the projectiles. Still, the idea of solely relying on a nearby power source doesn't sound like the party it used to be. Not after they're all exhausted. And then there was the disaster with Nora and her addiction to the little shards. Just another reason to be cautious about what he comes to rely on for power.

Aura shards are still a perfect creation, one he will take advantage of anyways in the upcoming tournament and future battles, but he's come this far without relying anything than his own power. Even if said power was stored in a tiny crystal, it technically no longer belonged to him. Not anymore once it left his body and range of his control.

Questioning it and remembering his fight against the Leos, Jaune settles on the idea to increase his Aura reserves, rearranging times when he can practice his Aura training. Then he comes to the conclusion of why not simply concentrate his Aura throughout the day? That would slowly drain away Aura throughout the whole day, pushing his soul to the brink until more Aura is needed, thus marginally increasing his reserves. And if push came to shove, he always had Lore for a backup.

Not a perfect plan, but a better one in the long run.

Plus any threats relating to the Grimm are starting to diminish each second he watches Nora fuss over Sir Scrabbles and his apparent adorableness. Hard to take humanity's greatest threat seriously when it's getting snuggled in a hug that broke barriers.

"I'm hungry!" Nora suddenly shouts, pulling her leader out his thoughts. "Let's go get breakfast!"

"I could go for some nourishment." Pyrrha adds, liking the idea of food. "Breakfast does sound pleasant."

Ren reaches out from underneath his bed, pulling out one of his legendary health bars, "I already have my breakfast right here."

Nora shivers from watching Ren take a bite of what she calls poison, "Bleh! You and those nasty health bars! One day you're gonna kills someone with those!"

"Impossible," Ren assures her, biting down into another corner of his _delicious_ snack. The cloak waves wistfully as he walks towards the door. "They're healthy. You can't get hurt eating healthy foods."

Nora latches onto Pyrrha's arm as they walk out the room, "Pyrrha! Tell Ren he's insane for liking those!"

The cereal girl's not sure what to say, smiling awkwardly as Nora pulls her out the door. Only Jaune's left alone in the room, watching Sir Scrabbles finish the last of his Aura shard before slowly crawling back into Nora's bed to sleep underneath the blankets where the sun can't reach it. Jaune does Sir Scrabbles one better and closes the blinds before heading out, already concentrating a bit on his Aura.

Now that Nora mentioned it, he is sort of hungry.

It's only breakfast. What's the worst that can happen?

...

Other than the flour strike having finally ended, everything seemed to be normal when Team JNPR sat down to enjoy their breakfast. Nora's mouth couldn't stop drooling at the sight of seeing Beacon's pancakes being served again; Pyrrha enjoyed a crisp tart, bagel with cheese, and warm cup of chocolate milk while Ren continued eating those bland health bars of his with a side salad. Jaune, on the other hand, spoiled himself with a warm sandwich, immensely enjoying the taste of chicken and vegetables in his mouth for a breakfast platter.

A perfect breakfast to start a perfect day.

 _Slam_!

"You guys are back from your camping trip!" Ruby pops in from the corner, smile bright, dropping a heavy binder down onto their table. "So how was it—uh?" She never finishes, zooming over to Ren to see the cloak attached to his shoulders, akin to the cape she wore. A silence passes over before a fire burns deeply in her eyes, "What are _you_ doing?"

Ren takes the time to break down her question, thinking of the multiples answers he could give her. None of them seem right as he can't seem to figure out what's she implying, having very little to base on.

So he settles for the obvious, "Eating."

She pokes her finger onto the table, "Not that! This!" Ruby grabs part of his cloak. "What are you doing with this? You can't have a cape! Only I can have a cape! It's sort of my thing!"

"It's not a cape," he says simply, dipping his fork into his salad. "It's a cloak."

"What's the difference?"

Ren points his fork at the collar, giving Ruby a disinterested glare, "The collar rides up. I lack a hood."

Ruby's eyes roam around the cloak, eventually narrowing when she finds what she's looking for, "You're trying to copy me!"

"No I'm not."

He's honestly not. Life just seems to be making it look like that. Ren would like nothing more for Ruby to drop this silly rivalry of hers before it spirals out of control, but all the problems seem to stem from _him_ , making it look like he's the one provoking _her_. Beating her in a fight, refusing her challenges, robbing away her two week planned activities she had plan for them during the break, and now this. From a different angle, this rivalry seemed very much alive and very much his doing.

How troublesome.

Ruby grabs the giant binder she brought over, glaring sourly at Ren, "Hmph, this isn't over," and zooms over to her team across from them.

How they didn't notice them will remain one of Remnant's greatest mysteries.

"Gosh, Ren," Jaune laughs, patting him on the back in a show of mock support, "At this rate, you'll never get Ruby off your back."

The stoic ninja's eyes slide over to Jaune, barely peeking over the cloak's collar, "What about you and Yang? From where I'm sitting, I can see her glaring daggers at you."

Jaune looks over to spot Yang doing just that with Weiss looking indifferent to what Ruby is saying about most likely Ren and Blake reading her book in silence. Then their leader is off, giving some important speech from what he can tell, and Jaune tries to ignore Yang's sudden smirk and devious gleam tracing the ridge of her eyes and smile.

"Aw! She's fine!" he bluffs, waving his hand easily. "Yang can't hold onto a grudge!"

 _Plop_!

"She just threw a grape at you."

Jaune ignores Ren in favor for more important topics, "So I was thinking we could go to Vale after dinner? After just getting back to Beacon, I'm not too much in a hurry to leave."

Pyrrha smiles into the bite of her bagel, talking with her mouth full in a rare moment of not caring, "That sounds perfect. I've been meaning to pick something up as well."

"Oh?" Jaune grins, pretending that an apple didn't hit him on the head. "And what might that be?"

Pyrrha thinks for a moment before thinking that turnabout might be fair game. Plus she wants to surprise her leader and show him when she's fully got a grasp on the project. And if she can't fully learn to control the metals in blood on her own, then she knows he'll always be there to lend a hand.

Sipping her drink, a smile grows on the rim of the cup, "That's a secret."

"Ohhh!" Nora moans with pancake in her mouth, staring teasingly at her Fearless Leader. "She's keeping secrets! Sounds just like our leader!"

The team laughs at the distant memory with Jaune rubbing his neck, "Okay! Okay! Is it at least a good secret?"

Pyrrha puts her finger to her lip, teasing her poor leader, "Of course. You're not the only one who—?!"

 _Splat_!

Jaune, Ren, and Nora's eyes widen as a pie hits Pyrrha squarely on the face. They all turn to see Team RWBY pointing fingers at Yang with Blake resting her head dejectedly into her book and Weiss hiding her disappointment behind her palm. Even Ruby looks stubbornly at her Yang's who's making an _oh_ gesture at her clear mistake and poor aim.

When the pie slides off Pyrrha's face, Jaune can feel a sudden spike in pressure coming from his partner's Aura.

Without warning, Pyrrha grabs Jaune's sandwich from out of his hands and chucks it wildly across the table, glad the contents of the sandwich come undone in midair and land between all of Team RWBY. She couldn't exactly see past from the whip cream to see _who_ they were pointing at for the culprit of this heinous act, so the invincible girl gladly settles on the fact that the tomatoes land on Weiss's hair, mayo all over Ruby's outfit, buns on Blake's face and book, and varies meats on Yang's cheeks.

The brawler is the first to retaliate by chucking another apple at them, missing all of Team JNPR and hitting aside Nora's pancakes instead. Her plates leaves her hands and drops to the floor where the fluffy pancakes meet their unjust demise, and Nora's gasping at the loss of delicious nectar.

Then all hell breaks loose!

Angry of her innocent friends perishing, Nora flips her team's table, effectively throwing the remaining food at any general direction. Litter of morsels fall upon the student body and Team RWBY, who respond with equal vigor. Even Blake and Weiss get sucked into the brawl when syrup drenches their perfectly brushed hair and ruining a perfectly good breakfast.

Food is thrown between the teams without care, not once caring for the other students eating nearby. Everything is a weapon, bread, turkeys, watermelons, and so much more. So much in fact that all the other students run for cover when Nora flips even more tables to create a fort like structure where she happily stood on top of.

No one notices a blue hair teen and his monkey Faunus friend enter as everyone else vacates the premise, yelling _Food Fight_.

Standing on the pinnacle of her wooden castle, Nora laughed mockingly at her challengers, aided by her loyal allies. The merciless Fair Maiden stood a deck below her with her loyal Sloth King and Fearless Knight guarding the front lines. And the Pancake Queen herself gloated with perfect virtue and strength.

"Ha! Ha! Ha!" she laughed louder, leaning back to throw her voice farther, "I'm queen of the castle! I'm queen of the castle!"

Stomping her foot on a table with enough force to rattle the food, Ruby pointed at the evil Pancake Queen with fury, determined to be the hero to bring down the corrupt monarchy. "Justice will be swift! Justice will be painful! It will be... delicious!"

Her followers rallied behind her, taking Ruby's crushing of a carton of milk as their sign to charge! They all yell to their heart's content, fist raised alongside their leader, "Yea!"

Accepting Ruby's challenge, Nora leaped off her balcony to join her fellow cohorts, landing behind her watermelon cannons, "Off with their heads!"

The Sloth King is first to react, sliding beside the watermelons to quickly grab and lunge the fruit forward at the attackers with the aid from his practice of wielding Magnhild. Their Fearless Knight joins him, picking one up of his own and adding a hefty amount of Aura to his swing while their Fair Maiden finds salt and peppers shakers, tossing them to blind their invaders. But it's the Pancake Queen who does the most damage, flipping a table holding multiple watermelons to their attackers.

Ruby's instantly in leader mode, "Yang! Turkey!"

Moving on command, Yang fisted two nearby turkeys, using them as replacement gauntlets. She crushes her hands tightly together before intercepting the incoming barrage of fruit with deadly precision, punching her way through wave after wave of watermelon. But the brawler's only so good, having to backflip away and dodge a few others before having to stay on the defensive.

She's not stuck fighting defensively for too long, her partner eventually runs up to join the fray, using a pair of nearby baguettes to push back the watermelons and give her partner enough to space to push alongside her. Together they're a well-oiled machine, decimating Kingdom JNPR's first wave of defenses, and quickly crossing the threshold to raid the castle.

Smashing a few more watermelons while Blake runs off to intercept from the sidelines, Yang tosses the turkeys like ammunition, aiming squarely for the Fearless Knight with a grudge and motive. Surprisingly enough, the knight's able to dodge the projectiles, focusing on his Aura to give him the boost to keep up. He's then running at Yang while reaching down to grab a nearby baguette, using the bread as a sword of his own that's coated in a layer of Aura.

Dodging an incoming Blake, Jaune feels Spaces all around him collide together in a cornucopia of pressure and color as everyone begins to use their Aura, upping the ante for this little game of theirs. In the background he can feel and hear Pyrrha intercept Blake, fighting together in a... _stale_ mate.

Ha! That's four! Take that Yang!

Not prepared for an assault confrontation from the Fearless Knight, Yang barely dodges the swing of his baguette by rolling back while using the quick momentum to gain some proper footing and distance. During her roll, she managed to pick up another pair of turkeys and met the knight head-on for a second round.

Heh, she'll give him this. He definitely is fearless to be challenging her.

Bringing her forearm to intercept the baguette, Yang's immensely surprised by the amount of force behind the swing, completely losing her balance. She's immediately pushed back into a pile of broken watermelons, covered from top to bottom in the thick, sticky juice of the damn fruit. Then she's forced to quickly side roll out of the way, or be stuck taking a full slash of the Fearless Knight's attack.

Many things aren't adding up for the brawler, but she pushes that all aside for the simple matter of fighting this man one-on-one. A fight she's been itching to have for more than two weeks.

Hands full—pun for the win—Yang sure hopes her team's fairing fine without her.

...

Blake glares at the Fair Maiden, locking baguettes in a struggle of dominance of will. Her ears pick up fighting behind her between her partner and Jaune Black Smudge. Instincts tell her to be worried, but she's not too sure for whom. Then instincts scream at her to take the Fair Maiden seriously as her strength begins to fail against her unknown power.

Lifting her foot, she tries to kick the Fair Maiden away, but she leaps back to dodge the kick, tossing forward her baguette for Blake to block. Only to have the Fair Maiden lunge forward and grab the baguette in midair, using Blake's momentarily distraction to her advantage to deliver a cross sweep that centers directly at Blake's midriff.

Thinking on her feet, Blake lets go of one of her baguettes, quickly allowing the long bread to fall a foot before re-grabbing and twisting the loaf in her hand to intercept the strike. It works. Allowing the bookworm to strike the Fair Maiden on the side, thus giving her the first strike of their little match. Yet, first strike or not, this fight is far from over as her opponent tosses up a pepper shaker from who knows where, catching Blake in a _sneeze_ attack!

Oh no... Yang's rubbing off on her.

Sneezing, Blake doesn't notice the Fair Maiden pull in her baguette roughly, stopping its momentum when the bread reaches the halfway point, getting locked tightly between her fingers. The booklover then feels the sudden stings of bread poking her body from all points in a never-ending assault that's both quick and enduring.

Struggling, Blake crosses her baguettes, splitting them right after to build up a shield and a stubborn push. The payoff works, pushing her fighter back enough for Blake to move on the offense once more, using one of her breads as a pole to life herself in the air and toss her other baguette at the Fair Maiden. A perfect strategy, one that lands a blow on the Fair Maiden's midriff and forces her back, but at the price of a lack of defense and retreat.

Left in the air and open to attacks from all sides... including incoming deadly watermelons from the Pancake Queen and her inhuman strength, Blake barely has time to intercept half of the watermelons heading towards her before the Fair Maiden tosses her baguette roughly for Blake's head. Luckily, Weiss comes to the rescue with a swordfish clutched in her hand and a tray in her other for a shield.

Weiss is only able to block most of the food and barely look over her tray shield to see the Pancake Queen close in, "Watch out!"

Blake doesn't exactly have time to understand what Weiss is saying until she's pushed away by her icy teammate to avoid a watermelon to the face. Somewhere along the lines, the Pancake Queen had found a way to construct a hammer using a pipe and watermelon for the head before going on the offensive to fight their resident Ice Queen.

A fight between hot and cold, soft and hard, insane and sane has just begun.

 _Splash_!

Awestruck, Blake barely had time to acknowledge her school uniform was covered in ketchup and mustard from the Fair Maiden's counterattack. Then an avalanche of red and gold head towards her direction like a tsunami, and Blake has even less time to kick up a nearby table to shield herself from the onslaught. But while she shields herself, she spots a roll of weenies lying beside her feet and the gears in her head run a mile a minute.

Out of ammunition, the Fair Maiden narrows her eyes at the block of blood and gold still standing from her attack, wondering where the pesky ninja had runoff to. Then she no longer has to wonder with Blake jumping above the table, tossing her baguette, which she easily sidesteps before a trail of weenies is coming for her.

They rap around the Fair Maiden's arm and she barely has time to look down at the rope binding her before Blake's pulling her in with her baguette squarely locked to attack, "Get over here!"

...

Ruby's paralyzed from watching her team fight evenly against the evil Kingdom of JNPR. A second later she shakes her head, "Head in the game, Ruby! Your team needs their leader!"

Checking to see who's the closest, Ruby runs up to grab a tray and grinds across the battlefield from table to table. Her closest ally is her partner and she's slowly closing the gap to aid Weiss against the dreaded Pancake Queen, but Fate's a tricky mistress. Sometimes she's sweet and gentle and other times she's cruel and harsh.

Only two tables left to go, Ruby almost reaches Weiss but her cloak gets stepped on from behind and she falls on her adorable butt. The tray tumbles on the floor, clinging as it eventually slides to be forgotten in the turmoil of custard bombs and pepper strikes.

"It's been a long time, Ruby," she hears from behind, alerting the Little Reaper to her current adversary. Her blood just begins to boil as she comes face-to-face with JNPR's own Sloth King. "Your fight's with me."

Narrowing her eyes, Ruby feels both excited and angry at the emotionless tone he used to poke at her. They narrow even more so from the way he so easily stepped on her cloak, lacking any sort of grievance for disrespecting her pride and joy.

Pulling her hood away, Ruby points at her rival, "Prepare to feel the full wrath of my justice!"

The Sloth King regards her words with a lack of emotion, hinting to nothing but pulling out a pair leeks from the confines of his sleeves, "Who talks like that?"

A gust of winds blows from behind, laced with the taste of sugary substances, trapping their cloaks to the effects of gust. Hers blows past her shoulders and over her body with her hair falling to the same Fate. His is hardly pushed away somehow with only his hair losing the fight to the wind. A distinct chill runs up her spine from the way he stood so straight with his cloak hardly moving.

He calls it a cloak, but to her it looks like more of a mantle with the way it hung so easily on his shoulders or how it refused to bend to the wills of gravity.

Still, Ruby couldn't have asked for a better opponent, "I'll show you!"

Looking around the battlefield, Ruby spots her weapons and makes a hasty dash towards them with a trail of rose petals left in her wake. Her hands reached down towards the piles of cookies and she uses her semblance to give herself a little boost before tossing the cookies towards the Sloth King. By using her speed as the base of her velocity, anything she throws will essentially move faster than her, practically making them move at speeds rivaling bullets.

Testing his limits, the Sloth King reaches out with a wave of his arm, feeling his semblance less in his control than when his mantle is wrapped completely around his body, but the effects are still far better than before. A wave of invisible pink lashes out and comes in contact with a few of the cookies, causing them to lose their trajectory in an untimely and unfortunate set of events with the end result being a cookie to cookie collision that essentially annihilated most of Ruby's projectiles, turning them into a mess of destruction and dough.

The very few that broke through all that were met with an early death from a slash of leeks, except for the one he merely caught between his fingers as an act of humor.

Feeling his cloak improve his power to a new level, the Sloth King took a bite of the lukewarm morsel, "You're still too slow."

Angry that he brushed off her attack like it was nothing, Ruby took a step back to place her foot at the right angle. She got ready to show him what _slow_ really looked like. No matter what! She will beat her rival! Nothing's going to stop this Rose!

Studying her, the Sloth King crushed the remainder of the cookie in his hand, tossing away the crumbs before bringing up his leeks in a cross guard of sorts. Then he's concentrating on his Aura as Ruby breaks the distance between them with a large mass of food trailing behind her due the vacuum of air she's created from her sudden burst of speed. Parts of him feel honored that such a powerful attack is solely meant for him; the other part of him can't help but sigh at the sheer foolhardiness of why he's coming head to head with a wall of fatty foods.

How troublesome.

Bringing up his leeks, Ruby's boots press hard against the vegetables, almost breaking them if it wasn't for the Aura the Sloth King concentrated into the foods. That, and unknown to everyone, the Lore played a heavy part as well. Due to Lore's gravity properties and the Sloth King's previous idea to use those properties to lessen or greater the effects of said properties, he instinctively lowered the gravity of Ruby's force the second she crossed paths with his.

Just like the cloak's power to stay connected to his shoulders, Lore's gravity properties are definitely an oddity. One Team JNPR needed to test more on. But for the meantime, the Sloth King has far bigger problems to worry about.

Even though he's stopped Ruby's kick, the piles of food coming towards them was still a very lively threat. One the adorable reaper tried to evade with her superior speed, but the Sloth King had trapped her foot between his leeks, keeping them both stuck in place as the food almost reached them.

"What are you doing?! We're both going to get caught in that tornado of food!"

Her rival stopped for a slight second to think about this before poking Ruby on the forehead, "Not we." Adding a little of his semblance to Ruby's still locked foot, he let her go and jumped back towards the gold and blood colored wall. "Nora!"

Popping her head over the Ice King, the Pancake Queen grinned in her deadlock with Weiss at the sight of food coming towards them. Raising her foot, she kicks Weiss on the stomach and connects a solid hit with her watermelon hammer that sends Weiss towards Ruby before jumping after her king, "Coming, Ren!"

Flying towards her leader, Weiss can't move in time to avoid hitting her and Ruby couldn't either as she somehow tripped on her two feet. Somewhere in the background they can hear the Fearless Knight and the Fair Maiden take cover from two soda machines being levitated together to form a barricade with their opponents none the wiser.

Then the cataclysm happens.

The Kingdom of JNPR hides behind their walls as the maelstrom of food passes over them with the screams of their opponents littering the backgrounds. Gushes of air sweep across their barricades, threatening to topple them over as well, but they hold. Through the act of Monty they hold strong.

When the winds die down, Team JNPR looks behind them to see all of Team RWBY pinned to the wall in a palette of colors and swirls of their own design. One by one they fall from their easel, landing with halfhearted thuds and groans, painting the floors in a messy rainbow. No inch of them resemble any of their previous color palate.

It's almost enough to warrant a laugh from Team JNPR if it wasn't for an angry Professor Goodwitch suddenly entering the room with a pressure Jaune knows outclasses all of theirs. Then she's using her semblance with a growl and unleashes it all around them in a haze of purple Aura only Jaune can see. Something that looks absolutely magnificent as Professor Goodwitch's semblance resembles a lot of invisible hands that grab onto each and everything that's not them, fixing the mess hall in seconds.

When it's all finished, she fixes her glasses to glare at each and every one of them, "Children, please. Do not play with you food." Nora burps at this, getting Professor Goodwitch slightly angrier.

Luckily for them, Ozpin walks in right after, giving her a light smile, "Let it go."

Goodwitch doesn't know what to say, so she sighs as both teams begin to ignore the Headmaster and Professor. Part of here doesn't know what to think; maybe that's why she comes to Ozpin when she's lost. Even now, he always seems to have the answers.

"They're supposed to be the defenders of the world."

"And they will be," he agrees, enjoying the light laughter in the background, "but right now they're still children. So why not let them play the part. After all," he looks at Jaune Arc who isn't worse for wear than he expected, "it isn't a role they'll have forever."

Glynda looks between Ozpin and the students, finding the meaning behind his words, but still not liking how these children were acting. Still, there will be times where a little fun can go a long way. And if the Headmaster didn't want to punish them, then there was very little she could do.

"Fine," she waves, already walking out and barely greets a Monkey Faunus and the _purple_ hair individual covered in grape juice.

Ozpin follows alongside her a second later; barely passing one more look to watch his students as the doors to the mess hall closes. Then the mess hall is a furry of talking and commotion, even more so when Team RWBY recognizes one individual standing by the door.

"Sun?" Blake presses, whipping off a banana peel from her hair. "When did you get here... why are you here?"

"What's up?!" Sun grins with an easy wave. "I wanted to introduce you to my buddy, Neptune and show him how awesome you guys are! And we're exchange students for that Vytal Tournament thing. Say hey, Neptune."

Neptune merely tries to wipe away the purple from his outfit, ignoring his friend's request, "Aren't mess halls meant for eating?"

Sun shushes him, "Shut up! Don't be a nerd. And dude!" he points at Neptune's multi-colored hair. "You're hair looks totally awesome with that shade of purple. You should keep it like that."

Neptune pulls his hair down to see it is indeed covered in a purple hue. Knowing it's futile to try and fix with him covered in the color purple, Neptune at least wipes away the stain on his face, somewhat glad that everyone _but_ Sun is covered in food. Kind of makes everything balanced.

Kind of!

How the food missed his hyperactive and always looking for trouble partner is beyond him.

And then everyone's talking to Sun and Neptune with both Jaune and Ren left in the background to clean off the few specs of food that have gotten onto them. They're about to join Sun and Neptune as they finish, but Monty has other plans for the fellow males of Team JNPR. Cruel, heartless plans.

"This isn't over!" Ruby yells suddenly, forcing Ren to turn to meet her with a quick spin. "I won't lose to you!"

Ren fixes young Ruby a glare, pointing at the lettuce stuck to her hair, "You just did... again." Probably the wrong thing to say as Ruby's about ready to explode.

Jaune would try to diffuse her and stop this madness from growing, but he's got his own _rival_ to worry about. And she's a lot more forceful than Ruby.

Shaking him, Yang's relentless, "I'm not going to lose to you! I want a rematch or else!"

Even through her nonstop shaking, Jaune Arc knows fully well Yang did _not_ lose to him. She lost to the tornado of food that Ruby caused, her baby sister! Not him. Not Jaune Arc. Not the leader of Team JNPR! But Ruby Rose. Yang's leader. Yang's baby sister. Not him!

Somehow that got lost in translation. And what Yang Xiao Long got from all that was Team RWBY lost, so in theory, Yang lost to Jaune. Made sense from one angle, maybe even two, but not all of them covered the simple line of common sense.

But again, something must have got lost in translation.

Confused and dizzy, Jaune's traitorous mouth beat him before logic can, "Or else what?"

Tempted, the grin stretching on Yang's mouth can make a Grimm seem good and harmless compared to the nasty way her Aura enveloped her body. Her eyes gleams that lovely shade of crimson he's come to love so much and she's letting him go before he could figure out what's happening.

Then without a moment's rest, Yang scoots over to Ruby, who's still trying to gauge a reaction out of Ren, and plucks her sister away from Ren, "C'mon, Rubes! Looks like Ren and Jaune here want to feel the wrath of our might! And you _know_ what that means!"

Ruby squirms a little in Yang's hold, but raises her hands in the air, "Yea!"

Jaune and Ren are left clueless as Yang and Ruby run out the mess hall with a cackling laughter. They turn around to see the rest of their friends still engaged in a conversation with Sun and Neptune, apparently having missed their rivals declare war on them with them having no weapons prepared to counter any plans those two could come up with.

"How come we're the only ones who have to deal with this?"

Ren pretends to know the answer, "Because Monty hates us."

…

For all of the morning and half the afternoon, nothing happens to Jaune and Ren. But they remain cautious and diligent since Yang and Ruby have remained missing since the moment they left. Pyrrha and Nora tell them not to worry, but those two don't have stubborn one-sided rivalries. They don't understand the problems they have to go through.

No one does.

Other than staying on high alert, Jaune and Ren got a chance to meet Sun and Neptune. Cool guys who thought Ren could use more emotion in his life. A mutual agreement between all of Team JNPR and Weiss and Blake. Neptune had complimented Ren on his strange hair combo and Sun had said he could always use more fellow blond friends.

After everything was all said and done, Ren and Jaune liked Sun and Neptune, enjoying the extra testosterone in a girl heavy friend group, and the guys planned to hang out during some point in time when everyone wasn't trying to settle in at Beacon. After that, Sun and Neptune had followed Blake and Weiss around, searching for their missing team members while Nora and Pyrrha ran off to who knows where, apparently having something to do with girl talk.

Now they're walking back to their dorm room with Jaune looking over his shoulder every second. He can't feel Ruby or Yang's Aura, so they're not actively using their Aura which sort of settles Jaune's nerves, but that much.

"Should we be worried that we haven't seen Ruby or Yang since they ran away?"

If Jaune had been paying more attention, he would've noticed that Ren's eyes have been roaming the halls as well, "I am."

Reaching their room's door, Ren's eyes widen a little, barely avoiding a surprise water balloon aimed for his head from the side. He's unable to alert his Fearless Leader on time and the outcome... _Splash_!

"Ah!" Jaune cries, dripping in water. He just got cleaned up from the food fight! "What the heck?! Where did that come from?!"

Laughter fills the halls, answering their question when they spot Yang and Ruby's head popping out of the corner from the end of the hallway. Yang has another water balloon in her hand and she quickly throws it at Jaune, who, once again, can't dodge because this time the water's blinding him to the sneak attack.

 _Splash_!

"Ah!" Ren dodges the second water balloon Ruby tried to sneakily throw at him... it hits Jaune. "Ah! Come on!"

"Darn it!" Ruby growls adorably with Yang lightly messing her baby sister's head of hair, "I missed!"

"Don't worry, Rubes! You've got all day to prank poor Renny. He's a sitting duck."

Ren tilts his head, "I'm standing right here."

Yang blinks at that before tossing her other hidden water balloon, aiming directly at poor, blind Jaune. He's hit squarely between the eyes and the sisters are gone, leaving behind a soaking leader and cautious ninja.

"So..." Ren begins, trailing as Jaune wipes away water from his eyes. "They're pranking us. Is that it?" Jaune answers with a huff, pushing his hair back to avoid it sticking to his forehead. "This is going to be a long day."

Jaune's hit with another surprise water balloon from behind.

...

Sitting out a set of dry and clean clothes, Ren changed out of his school uniforms covered in filth and into their normal attire after stepping out of the shower, yet Ren's a little hesitant when he puts the cloak over his green tailcoat, unsure whether or not he should wear so many layers of clothing all at once. Sure, he already wears a black long-sleeved shirt underneath his tailcoat, so the idea of wearing extra clothing isn't something too crazy, but another piece of clothing sounds a bit too much.

And the mix colors of green, white, black, and pink clash too much for his benefit.

Placing all three down on the bed, Ren's eyes are distracted by Sir Scrabbles sliding over to his cloak and then black long-sleeved shirt, ignoring the bright, vibrant colors of his green tailcoat all together. There's a silent conversation passing between Ren and the tiny Grimm, one they both know Jaune is watching immensely as he exits out the shower with a towel wrapped around his lower torso and another used to wash his face.

Sir Scrabbles and Ren know in their own unique way that Jaune's still iffy on letting Sir Scrabbles stay with them. But, just like Ren, he can't say no to Nora when she begs, even more so after the little Emerald Forest episode. And Ren has no qualms about letting the little guy stay. Anything to make Nora happy and keep that smile always blooming. Plus they did solve Ren's personal problem. So they've earned the stoic man's trust.

Taking Sir Scrabble's advice, Ren calmly grabbed his green tailcoat and hung it back into the closet, deciding only to wear his long-sleeved with his cloak. Less constriction and the colors don't clash with his pants or hair.

Perfect!

"You're not gonna wear your tailcoat?" Ren's not sure what's he's more impressed with. That his Fearless Leader already figured out his plan... or that he knew what a tailcoat was. Apparently, he voices these thoughts through his subtle glare because Jaune rolls his eyes at him while drying off his face with his towel, "I have seven sisters, remember?"

Ah. That's right. Now Ren remembers. If anything, Jaune should know more about clothing than he should.

Satisfied, Ren shuts the closet, reaching for his long-sleeve, "It's too much." Popping his head out of his shirt, Ren's glare stays on Jaune for a little too long in eerie silence.

"What? Is there something on my face?"

"Yes."

"Huh?" Dropping the towel, Jaune walks into the bathroom and runs back out a second later; grabbing the towel he's just dropped. "What's all this black stuff all over my towel and face? It won't come off!"

A few minutes of fruitless rubbing with a _clean_ towel proves to be useless endeavor as all it does is slightly smudge the black stuff more so on his face. Eventually, it's across his forehead, passing straight down towards his cheek, looking like a giant black smudge.

Letting his leader furiously rub his face, Ren walks into the bathroom and searches it until he finds an empty bottle of prank ink. He reads over the instructions and labels printed across bottle, figuring Yang had something to do with the prank.

Walking out, Ren tosses the bottle towards Jaune, "This is what's on your face. It says it won't come off for twelve hours."

"What?!" Catching the bottle, Jaune reads over the instruction, sighing at his misery when he's done. Slowly he slides down onto the floor, "I should've just let Yang beat me up in a fight."

If only that was the end of Yang's pranks.

...

Yang's pranks only increased in volume the second Jaune left his team's room.

First was the door handle being covered in nail polish, leaving Jaune's palm covered in a sickly shade of gold that burned his palm slightly, but continuously. Then her dreaded air horn surprise hug prank that followed Jaune like the plague.

No matter where he turned, Yang was always nearby. Perhaps hiding behind a potted plant that didn't exist there before or wearing a sombrero three sizes too big. She found a way to get past Ren's leader impeccable defenses. But lastly, and the most dreaded of them all was Yang's pie to the face. A pie laced with love and lots of whip cream. The end result being Jaune having to take another shower, which backfired terribly after Jaune forgets about Yang's ink towel again.

Suffice to say, Ren's surprised his leader hasn't snapped yet.

The only time one of Yang's pranks backfired was the one neither Jaune nor Ren knew anything about. During some point in time, she had snuck Zwei into Team JNPR's room when they were all away, ordering Zwei to chew anything that smelled like Jaune, only to be surprised when Zwei hurried out the room with a large cut on his nuzzle seconds later.

When she tried to make him go back in, Zwei whimpered and ran back into the haven of Team RWBY's room and Yang had no time to see what the problem was, since Jaune and Ren at the time had been returning back to their room with Jaune covered in her chicken feathers prank.

She never saw the pair of blood red eyes peeking through Ren's sheets.

...

Ren walks into his team's room after eating lunch, finding his Fearless Leader scribbling in a frantic panic in the dead center. Jaune's shoulders are hunched and he's whispering to himself over and over again in a delusional manner. Essentially meaning, Lie Ren was a tad concern for his health, especially since Lore radiated from his body in unending haste.

Unlike Aura's bright glow, Lore's luminosity seemed to create even more shadows.

"What are you doing?"

Not sparing Ren a glance, he laughed, "Working on my latest plan to finally get back at Yang for all her pranks!" Jaune Black Smudge grinned evilly, harboring a spare Gravity to float his plans in a diabolic way. Oozes of Lore poured out of his body, "And you're just in time to help me! Okay! Here's what I need you to do—!"

"You shouldn't sink to her level..." Ren interrupted, emotions calm despite everything. Clearly, order needed to be restored and his leader wasn't capable. "I know Yang's been relentless with her pranks, but I refuse to be the smaller man and allow her petty tricks to get underneath my skin. Eventually they'll get bored and stop."

Jaune wasn't convinced at all, "Easy for you to say! Ruby hasn't even tried to prank you yet!"

"That is because she knows she can't."

 _Knock_! _Knock_! _Knock_!

Ignoring Jaune's attempts to persuade him, Ren goes to answer whoever's knocking. His lien's on Blake.

 _Splash_!

Giggles echo from out the hallway as Jaune sees Ren get drenched in a bucket of ice cold water, dripping down from every possible inch of his frame. Spots of water soak to the carpet as he remains to drip endlessly with a bucket stuck to his head from a highly reactive glue. The giggles soon become laughs that are clearly Ruby's, and Ren calmly shuts the door, releasing a dark intent that his cloak intensifies and Jaune's Gravity to gravitate to. Even Sir Scrabbles has popped out from underneath Nora's sheets from the weight of antipathy build up.

 _Drip_! _Drip_!

Ren Bucket Head turns his gaze towards Jaune Black Smudge, tone dangerously flat, "Tell me more about this plan of yours..."

...

Checking his scroll every few minutes, Jaune Black Smudge taps his foot impatiently on the dirt near Emerald Forest, wondering where the hell Ren was at. It was almost time to—?!

"There you are, Ren! It's about time you got—why do you have Sir Scrabbles?"

The tiny sloth Grimm peers from behind Ren's head, hiding most of its body beneath the collar of Ren's cloak with only the hue of black and blood eyes as its companion. No emotion escapes Sir Scrabbles. _Neither_ of the two outwardly expressed any emotion. It kind of freaked out Team JNPR's leader at the uncanny impassiveness.

Jaune still can't figure out how either Nora or Ren so easily let the little guy bunk with them. Pyrrha's still a little indifferent about the subject, but she hides it well or maybe she's just coming around to Ren's line of thinking. This whole Grimm theory Ren's testing is definitely pushing boundaries and breaking barriers. How he could so easily trust a Grimm to such a degree was beyond Jaune.

Shrugging his shoulders, Ren looks off into the moonless night, "Nora and Pyrrha were still busy with their girl time and I thought I should watch him. It's not good to keep an animal locked up in a room all day."

"It's a sloth," Jaune drones, pointing at crimson eyes blinking at him. "It likes being cooped up in a room all day. All they do is sleep! Sleep!" Sir Scrabbles makes a tiny yelping sound. "Alright! Alright! Fine! You can stay. You can stay. Just be quiet!"

Ignoring the irony, Ren peers over his shoulder to stare at the tiny Grimm, signaling the little guy with no words to hide back inside the safety of his cloak. Sir Scrabbles does just that and Ren's back to looking at his leader, "Is everything ready?"

"Yup! Just be ready to use your semblance when it's your signal!"

For the first time ever, Jaune sees Ren smirk lightly at the thought of testing out his semblance. Of course it might have something to do with Ren wanting to extract revenge on Yang and Ruby for the ice bucket prank. Maybe Lore's negative emotion backlash might be a culprit as well. Perhaps even a little of both if Jaune's honestly guessing at this point. It's all a matter of principle depending on which angle he's looking at.

Then the smirk's gone, hidden away as the cloak's collar closes all the way, allowing only Ren's pink eyes to be the mirror to his emotions.

What a useless mirror.

Grinning, Jaune revealed a white sheet with a set of razor shape teeth cut out for a mouth and two holes for eyes for the first part of his master plan. The next part had them both standing at the very edge of Emerald Forest just outside of Beacon Academy in the middle of the night with no one in sight. Third, Jaune has an outfit of Blake's, ready to make it look like she got eaten by the ghost. Fourth, Jaune's found a makeshift tree for them to hide in. Fifth was Blake's scroll with a message that never got _sent_. And finally, to really sell it, Jaune got Blake to lend him Gambol Shroud in exchange for a future favor, to read in his room right now, and his promise not to break it.

In all, everything was set except for one crucial component of the plan.

"How are you even going to get Yang and Ruby to come out here?" Ren poked, finding a loophole for only Jaune to grin, holding out his scroll. Ren's not impressed. "Won't it be just a _little_ bit suspicious if _you_ invite them to a secluded area outside of the school?"

"But I didn't," Jaune answers. "Blake did. She owes me one. Plus she's always so mysterious and stuff. It would be totally like her to want a secret meeting place away from Beacon."

Now Ren's impressed. Yet, there's still more to keep count for, "How do you know if they're still coming or not?"

Jaune waves out his hand, "I've been keeping track of their Aura ever since Blake sent out that message. They're slowly making their ways towards here. Blake's message had been one of utmost urgency," Again, Ren's impressed. Sometimes he forgets that Jaune's the real strategist of the team. "Okay! No more fooling around! They're almost here!"

Canceling out his concentration, Jaune switches to Lore and creates three Gravities. Each one floats in the air, hovering ominously due to their leader's emotions, yet they look no different compared to any of the Gravities Jaune's created in the past.

Interested, Ren finds the instinct to run gone and any fear he once had diminished to absolute nothing as he quietly kneels beside it, practically coming face to face with the dark power. Jaune can see Ren's Aura still remain close to his body, against the gravitational pull coming from three separate Gravities. None of his Aura is being drained or pulled away.

Fascinated, Jaune has to shake his head, needing to set up, "Forget about it for now. We'll test some stuff later out in our room!"

Reaching for the sheet, Jaune willed one of the Gravities to move up a little, trying to level them in a perfect triangle. When he does, he tosses the sheet over the orbs, impressed at Lore's capabilities to make the sheet float like an actual ghost. Then the blond throws some of Blake's clothing on the floor with red dye on both the ghost and her clothes to make the appearance of blood look real.

"Perfect!" Concentrating, Jaune moves the ghost's hands by willing the Gravities to move in that direction. It works and he sets up the final phase of his plan, placing Blake's clothing in the arms and mouth of the ghost.

Ren must admit it does look terrifying with the way it floats so easily in the air.

"Alright, time for us to hide!" Ren follows Jaune into a nearby tree that hides there location. Jaune then tested the power of his hold on the Gravities from far away, still having a fair control over them. "Good. It works. And here they come."

Jaune wills the ghost to hover higher in the air so Yang and Ruby don't see it.

Reaching their location, Ruby and Yang stop in the middle of courtyard, wondering where the heck Blake was at with their surprise. The message said to be there on time or she wasn't sharing the surprise with them. Of course the message had sounded fishy. Blake didn't do surprises. But Yang and Ruby couldn't take the chance to pass up an opportunity for Blake to open up.

"Where do you think Blake is at?" Ruby asked, standing on her tippy toes to see if Blake was further down the courtyard. No such luck. "Did we come too early?"

Yang checks the time on her scroll, scrunching her eyes at the numbers, "No... we came just as she told us to. Right on time. See, Ruby... Ruby?"

Yang looks up from her scroll to see her sister's petrified face staring right _behind_ her. Then before Yang can realize what's happening, a strange urge to run settles down in the depths of her spine, causing goose bumps to run up her arms and a chill to trap her soul. Fear overcomes her throat and it feels like her Aura is being drained away by the seconds.

Turning around, Yang sees a white sheeted ghost hovering behind her with articles of Blake's clothing drenched in blood, held in its arms and mouth. It takes a full three seconds for the brawler to breathe again before she bursts out laughing at the sheer dumbness of the thing happening right in front of her, almost choking really.

"Nice try, guys," Yang yells out between laughs, walking towards the _ghost_ even when her instincts tell her to run away. "I gotta admit... getting Blake to play along with your little prank was pretty good. But, c'mon, _this_ is the best you can do?"

Grabbing the sheet, Jaune wills the ghost's head to peer down at Yang's arm, dropping a piece of Blake's clothing in the process. Yang ignores this to pull the sheet and is eternally surprised to find nothing hidden inside. During the pull, Jaune had willed away the Gravities, already creating three more for the next phase of his plan.

"Uh... Yang," Ruby poked, pointing at the sheet in Yang's hand and the empty space where Jaune and Ren _should_ have been if this was their doing. "Where are Jaune and Ren?"

She doesn't know and she's not given the chance to ponder.

Coming out from the shadows of the trees, Jaune's spare ghost flew out towards them with Blake's weapon clutched between two Gravities and the third forcing the sheet forward. Except this spare had a much larger mouth with even sharper rows of teeth and eyes designed to look scary. This ghost also has Blake's other article of clothing in its mouth with the third Lore sphere keeping it from falling until the last possible moment.

Eyes widening, Ruby points at the weapon between the ghost's hands, "That's Gambol Shroud! What's it doing with Blake's weapon?!"

The ghost then passes by her, barely grazing past her body, inflicting Ruby with Lore's negative properties that cause fear and a numbing coldness to seep into her bones. Her Aura reacts violently to the almost contact, telling her to run as fast as she can.

But Ruby holds her ground, even when Gambol Shroud falls lifelessly on the floor, next to her boots and a scroll she didn't see before. The scroll is barely sticking out of the ground, covered in blood with a message having never been sent. And it takes some courage to reach down and retrieve the dying scroll.

When she reads the never sent message, her eyes widen and her hands begin to shake, "Yang! This is Blake's scroll! This thing ate—oomph!"

Yang pushes Ruby out of the way as the ghost tried to tackle Ruby, "Move out of the way!" They slide on the floor with the scroll falling next to Yang's face. There, she opens her eyes to read Blake's failed attempt to call for help. The last message she never sent.

"Yang..." Ruby whimpers, grabbing Gambol Shroud. "This is the _real_ Gambol Shroud."

Oh no!

Quickly standing up, Yang plucks that weapon out of Ruby's hand, gasping at the familiar feel of her partner's weapon. Then the fear returns as both the ghost rise up from the floor with the last of Blake's clothing falling out of their hands, no longer having the gravitational power to lift up the weapon with one of the Gravities moved to the second sheet to act as its head solely.

The ghosts then return on the attack, zooming towards Yang and Ruby with particles of dirt getting attracted by the gravitational pull of Gravity with a high pitch scream echoing from all around the forest edge. Jaune has to keep himself from laughing as Sir Scrabbles makes another high pitch echo that only adds to the mood. Meanwhile, Ren's getting into position behind a boulder, waiting for his moment to strike.

Hovering past Ruby and Yang, the Gravities absorb more of their Aura and inflict even more fear into them. By now they have come to the conclusion that this wasn't a prank, ironically, and started to take the situation more seriously.

"These ghosts ate Blake!" Ruby cried again, barely dodging the spirits as they flew over her head. "They ate Blake!"

Gritting her teeth, Yang tried to punch any of the ghost, but they always dodged her or simply her fists were met with an intangible body that's only part sheet and Lore spheres. Both of which quickly raised the fear in her soul each and every time she attempted to do something.

"We need to call for our weapons!" Ruby's already ahead of her.

Messages are sent and their lockers arrive in no time, but Jaune sets up Ren's queue, making one ghost block the weapon lockers while the bigger one hides Ren as he sneaks away from the boulder to add his semblance to Yang's and Ruby's weapon lockers and weapons themselves. Then the skinnier ghost rushes toward Yang and Ruby, distracting them just long for Ren to get back to the trees with Sir Scrabbles immediately latching itself on his neck.

"Now comes the fun," Jaune grins, crossing his arms before releasing them to speed up the ghosts' quickness.

Dodging the monsters, Yang and Ruby reach their weapons' lockers, having the hardest time trying to pry open the darn things. The machine was malfunctioning and the ghosts were already making a comeback, flying closer towards them with one of them having its hand stretched out.

"Enough of this!" Yang punches the steel locker, causing a dent but enough force to break open the locker. The skinner ghost then flies past her nose, draining away Aura from her head and causing the fear in her to rise. "Open! Damn it!"

Another fist breaks the locker open and she grabs Ember Celica, loading them onto her arms before breaking open Ruby's weapon locker.

Grabbing Crescent Rose, Ruby moves away just as the larger ghost attempts to grab her. Her hands are shaking as she grips her weapon, constantly telling herself that heroes don't get afraid. They do the right thing. And the right thing was to put these ghosts down for killing poor Blake!

Switching her weapon to scythe mode, Yang stands beside her with Ember Celica locked and loaded, ready to get even!

"Let's do this!" Ruby yells with fake heroism, wishing for nothing more than to be back in her dorm room where she can hide.

"For Blake!" Yang yells back, firing a few shotgun rounds at the skinny ghost... which go completely though it. Or at least that's what Yang and Ruby see.

Lie Ren knows all her shotgun shells missed—however impossible that really was—having messed with their weapon's barrels and aiming function with his semblance. But to Yang and Ruby, in the dark on a moonless night with only Beacon's outside light as a source, it looked like the shells passed harmlessly through the ghost.

Again, Ren's gotta hand it to Jaune, he's definitely thought of everything.

However, the constant strain of moving the Gravities away so far from his body is causing him to lose a lot of Lore compared to having them within a certain distance that keeps his Lore levels in check. This prank can only go on for so long before his leader uses up the last of his Lore.

Best to keep this prank short and everlasting.

Looking at Ruby, both Jaune and Ren are pleased to see her shots _missing_ as well, passing the larger ghost coming after her. Then Ruby tries cutting the ghost, only missing thanks to Jaune's quick reflexes. There's nothing Ren can do about her physical aim when it came to slashing, unless he personally messed with the person earlier.

"They won't go down!" Ruby misses another slash, feeling her Aura being drained away from the close proximity. "They're unbeatable!"

Yang doesn't believe that and fires even more of her shotgun shells at the skinny ghost, but it merely hovers there silently while all the shells miss as an ominous breeze passes by them, flapping the sheet aimlessly in the wind, revealing not a single hole in the sheet or skeletal structure underneath.

This dance they were playing had been going on for a while, and both Yang and Ruby were running out of breath and Aura quickly, falling dangerously close to red. Secondly, their instincts kept demanding they run, and the girls are starting to listen more and more to those little voices in their head.

"I think it's time to go into the final phase," Ren says, hearing the telltale signs of his leader breathing starting to harden after keeping this up for about five minutes. "By now they're scared enough."

"Good idea," Jaune prepares the final act of his little play, centering both the ghosts on poor, unsuspecting Ruby like a puppeteer playing with his puppets. "Time for the finale."

Yang of course isn't just going to let her baby sister fight a pair of ghost one on two. She jumps towards Ruby, firing pointblank in a never ending fashion into the chest of the larger ghost with red Dust infused shells and her semblance fueled by anger to boost.

"Die! Die! Die!"

The ghost catches on fire, slowly withering away from the flames burning the sheet. The Lore's coldness is able to halt the flames, but most of the sheet has given into ashes, eventually falling onto the floor in defeat.

Ruby smiles, eternally relieved, "Yang, you beat it! You beat that ghost and now—it's got me!"

During Ruby's distracted, celebratory cheer, Jaune used the remainder of the Gravity to hover over Ruby's head before willing it away so the sheet can fall onto Ruby's head while the skinnier ghost was pressed to her chest. Each of the Gravities spike up the fear surrounding Ruby, slowly draining away practically all of Ruby's Aura to near nothing.

"Ruby!" Yang almost shoots, but stops herself with Ruby stuck in the crosshairs.

"And now for the final act," Jaune whispers to Ren, willing away the Gravities since he no longer needed them. He extends his hand out, coating his palm in a shade of Lore, "Trap, Black Hole."

Poor Ruby barely pulls off the sheet from her head when the pull of a strong force grabs her, pulling her into the deep, dark woods. When she tries to break free, it's a useless plan since her Aura isn't strong enough anymore and the gravitational force exceeds her own.

Falling onto the floor, Ruby claws at the dirt, desperately trying to fight the force pulling her into the dark woods that has a pair of blood red eyes starting back at her, "Yang! Help me!"

Her sister is there in less than a second, grabbing Ruby's hand. She tries to pull Ruby away, but her Aura just isn't there to give her the strength. There's absolutely nothing left. Nothing!

Monty! Give her strength!

Feeling like they've made their point, Jaune wills Black Hole away, knowing his and Ren's happiness is both from their own pride and Lore's dark properties. So it's not too hard to figure out why they enjoyed this so much.

Watching Yang pull Ruby free from the ghost's grasp, Yang and Ruby decide to turn tail and run. Live to fight another day and all that good nonsense.

Waiting for Yang and Ruby to get far enough from the trees, both Jaune and Ren jump from there hidden spot, quickly recovering Blake's weapon and scroll off the floor as they run to accomplish the final part of their prank. Now all they had to do was outrun Yang and Ruby back to Beacon, an easy task to accomplish with Yang and Ruby running on no Aura.

Again... a brilliant plan by his Fearless Leader. Lie Ren can only imagine what Jaune Arc will accomplish when he sets out his power against enemies.

...

Beating them to their team's room, Jaune and Ren quickly enter their room with Nora, Pyrrha, and even Blake sitting nearby with a book in her hands. She quietly lowers the book, fixing the tired teens a silent glare that speaks with nothing and everything, knowing something's up just not what. Nora and Pyrrha are only more lost at what's happening when Jaune and Ren toss Blake her scroll and weapon.

"Act natural," Jaune says between breaths, pausing for a slight moment. "That's an order from your Fearless Leader." Kind of a hard order to do with a giant black smudge covering half of Jaune's face, but the three somehow manage.

Jumping on his bed, Jaune pulls out his Aura notebook, actually adding notes like Ren's immunity to his Lore's negative effects with Ren sitting right beside him. It's obvious to him why that's the case, but there's just so much he wants to test out. _Unfortunately_ —he thinks Ren might be responsible—there's no time to test out Lore's properties with Blake in the room.

 _Knock_! _Knock_! _Knock_! _Knock_!

There's a heavy pounding on their door and Pyrrha looks between Jaune and Ren for a second before sighing and goes to open it, still very lost. When she does, Yang and Ruby tackle inside with Weiss looking down, sighing right behind them and angry at being disturbed of her precious beauty sleep. They're a tangle of limbs on the floor and Weiss looks up, rubbing the bridge of her nose.

"These two dunces think they saw _and_ fought a ghost that ate Blake."

Amused, Blake eyes both Jaune and Ren who pretend Remnant's greatest secrets are inside that little notebook of Jaune's. How funny.

Standing up, Blake plays along and walks over to her fallen friends, waiting for their reactions from Weiss's explanation. Clearly, this all had something to do with Jaune's act natural order. So whatever was going on had to be good.

Of course Ruby's the first to react, "But we did! We saw a pair of ghosts that ate Blake." she cries over her shoulder, shaking her arms on the floor before latching onto Blake's foot to help herself up in a panic. "You gotta believe us!"

Weiss looks down at Ruby before crossing her arms to glare at Blake. All the bookworm does is wait for Ruby to finally look up at whose foot she's grabbing, feeling a tiny bit of humor bubbling up in her chest.

"I believe you, Ruby." Blake says with a tiny smile. "Those darn ghosts must have torn me to shreds."

"They did!" Ruby shakes, pulling Blake closer to meet her at eye level. It takes Ruby a few seconds to figure out what's happening before her eyes are widening to impossible heights. "Blake! You're alive!"

Blake ponders on what this whole ghost fiasco was about, and some part of her knows Jaune and Ren had something to do with it, but for the life of her, she can't figure out what Ruby's rambling on about. And then the hug of a lifetime crushes Blake in a death grip, crushing the poor girl under Ruby's hold. "I'm happy I'm alive, too. You can let go of me now—!"

Yang follows soon after, adding to the surprise hug. Weiss is the only one not partaking in the hug, pulling the group of three knuckleheads out of Jaune's room from the sheer absurdity of everything happening around her, ignoring Ruby and Yang's pointless gibberish.

"I'll see you guys tomorrow for class. Goodnight." Weiss slams the door as cries are heard from across the hall. "Stop crying, you dolt. She's fine! There's no such thing as ghost!"

 _Slam_!

Wincing at the slam of the door, Pyrrha stands up and Nora tilts her head. They both turn their heads towards Jaune and Ren who are busy writing and adding stuff to Jaune's Aura notebook with Sir Scrabbles perched over Ren's shoulder, rubbing its claws in Jaune's hair with bored curiosity.

"What was that all about?" Pyrrha finally asked, waiting for a response. She doesn't get one, "Well?"

Sideways glancing at each other, the two guys and the sloth eventually look back at the females with Jaune taking the lead, "Long story short, we pulled the greatest prank in Remnant's history on Yang and Ruby. One of that can't ever be remade. It's was awesome."

Pyrrha's looks conflicted, but it's Nora who is hurt emotionally, "And where were _we_ for this totally awesome prank of yours?"

"You were the ones who wanted to have your girl time or girl talk. Plus they were pranking _us_ , not you, so it was personal," Ren counters easily, enjoying the way Nora's cheeks puffed out.

"That's not fair!" Nora whines, not believing she missed out on _Ren_ pulling off a prank. Ren! "You know how much I love pranks! Tell me what you guys did!"

Tilting his head, Jaune closes the Aura notebook, knowing full well how holy this subject was between his sisters. He might finally be able to learn the true secret to this ancient language. Worth a shot. Maybe even two.

"We will..." he trails, smiling stubbornly. "If you tell us what you two were talking about that was so secretive."

Based on the shrinkage of their pupils, they weren't spilling anytime soon. Especially after they look away from them, pretending now they didn't exist with a flush on their cheeks. Poor Jaune and Ren will never understand women and their strange ways. Alas, a greater mystery than the inner workings of Aura and Lore.

"Would you look at the time?" Nora throws her arms up in the air, feigning sleepiness. She scoops up Sir Scrabbles from Ren's neck in a panic, "Time for bed! I'm beat! What about you, Pyrrha?!"

"Oh!" she jumps. "Yes! Sleep does sound wonderful." She stops to look at her leader, "Sorry, Jaune, looks like we'll have to head to Vale tomorrow after class to pick up more white Dust shards."

Blinking, the males of Team JNPR don't have much say in the matter as the light's washed away from the room. Supposedly it really was bed time with the way Pyrrha and Nora jumped right into like a pair of Huntsmen-in-Training.

Strange.

Oh well.

Turning to stare at Ren in the darkness with a wide grin and strong posture, Jaune's cobalt eyes shined with a light as his Aura comes back to life from the moment he switches between the powers. Ren's magenta eyes do the exact opposite, embracing the darkness, slowly succumbing to the shadows in the room that hid away his emotions and protected him.

"Ready for classes tomorrow?"

* * *

 **Author Notes:** Two hidden references in this chapter. All hail the Kingdom of JNPR.


	15. Anchor

**Disclaimer:** I own nothing of RWBY.

* * *

 **Anchor**

 **By: Imyoshi**

Order—an impossible concept that cannot exist as long as free will continues to reign supreme.

No such thing as a perfect world truly prevails.

Fear crushes dreams and gives way for control to thrive.

Then and only then can order be truly possible when free will is controlled by fear.

 _Poke_!

There's a distinct pressure building on his face. Jaune Arc can just _feel_ it—and not in the Space sense, but the literal sense of actual physical contact. Almost like someone or _something_ is poking him without a cause, reason, or even justification, simply just to annoy or pester him. Perhaps it's all an elaborate scheme to ruin his day? Or maybe worse, just for laughs.

 _Poke_! _Poke_!

Finally opening his tired eyes, Jaune meets Sir Scrabble's emotionless, blood orbs with both of them taking the time to blink slowly at each other with no words or sounds being exchanged. Somehow the Grimm escaped Nora's cuddle hold and perched itself on top of his chest, lying flat with its limbs spread out and claw resting on his cheek as to further explain all the stubborn poking that lured Jaune away from slumber. And all before the sun's barely peeking over the horizon.

What a way to wake up. Bright and early with classes not starting for at least another two hours. Three if he's lucky.

Narrowing his eyes, Team JNPR's Fearless Leader makes no attempt at getting up or even shaking the Grimm resting casually off his chest, only fixing the emotionless beast a sigh that strangely resembled Ren's, minus all the patience and trust the stoic guy possess.

"What?"

 _Poke_! _Poke_!

Part of the Arc blames Nora for this. Not even three days with the sloth Grimm and it's already picked up some of her more eccentric habits. Poking being the apparent winner in a long list of things she does to annoy him. Next thing he knows, Sir Scrabbles is going to sign him up for cooking classes and meetings with the guidance counselor to help build trust and create the perfect pancake. Just more of Nora's failed schemes and misguided ideas.

Some portion of Jaune—the sensible and reasonable chunk he likes to call it—still doesn't trust Sir Scrabbles and it shows with his lack of smiles around the monster. Another part of him prefers to keep Nora happy and lively to avoid Ren's deadly wrath. So, there's that. It's not a love-hate relationship. No. Nothing simple like that, just the idea of hurting Nora again and not wanting that to happen overpowers his hidden disaffection towards the sloth Grimm.

Doesn't make the situation any easier to accept.

Ignoring Sir Scrabbles, Jaune yawns and sits up with the Grimm slowly sliding off his chest to another part of his bed which included hiding under his sheets. He looks outside his team's window and spots the sun peaking over the mountains, signaling the beginning of the new semester. And his team is still asleep with both the girls snoring the morning away. In a sad way, it's comforting.

Watching his team sleep, Jaune notes the various ways a person snoozes and how it speaks volumes about their personalities. Nora likes to toss and turn with a goofy smile on her face and trail of drool tracing down her cheek. Every so often words like pancakes and Ren escape her mouth, and speaking of Ren. He's the exact opposite, still as a log and even quieter than one. Pyrrha, on the other hand, needs something to latch onto in her sleep that something being her pillow which is pressed tightly to her chest while she mumbles nonsensical things.

And _he's_ the leader of this team? Monty help them.

Letting his team sleep, Jaune decides to take advantage of his early wake-up call and heads towards Beacon's washroom to get an early shower. Yesterday's prank in the woods has left him covered in dirt and grime and he rather not be covered in evidence for either Yang or Ruby to find. Plus, he's already too wide awake to fall back asleep now. Not with Sir Scrabbles watching his every move. Just waiting for the perfect opportunity to poke him.

Grabbing his school uniform, Jaune leaves with a soft click of the door.

...

He's brushing his teeth after a lengthy shower with his hair still wet when a hand grabs his shoulder with the owner of that hand smirking into the foggy mirror, "Well, if it isn't my favorite punching bag. Been awhile, Jaunie-boy."

Against all odds, Jaune still manages to find a way to smile, "Cardin? What are doing up so early?"

He moves past Jaune to brush his own teeth, using the mirrors to talk, "Isn't it obvious? If I want to avoid having to share bathroom space with every other loser in this dorm, gotta wake up early. Perfection like this takes work you know." He flexes his muscles, smirk growing, "Maybe one day you'll know how it feels to have guns like these."

Jaune can't help but laugh at the pose he makes, liking this side of Cardin when he's not bullying anyone. Granted, he's gotten much better on not picking on anyone. As a matter of fact, Jaune can't remember the last time he's heard Cardin taunting anyone or just being a plain nuisance. Rumors have even been floating around that he's been seen eating with Velvet Scarlatina of all people recently!

Lies! Obviously!

The sound of brushing teeth fills the silence that falls over them before it becomes too much to bear for Jaune, "So... aren't you going to ask me how I'm handling the Vytal Tournament problem?"

Cardin spits into the sink, glaring into the bathroom mirror, "Tch! Why would I ask you that? What do I look like? A damn therapist?"

Jaune overlooks Cardin's disdain, fixing the man a comforting shrug, "For what it's worth, thanks. If you hadn't had warned me, my team would've been in big trouble."

Cardin wipes away the water from his face, walking off without so much as a care, "Whatever."

Jaune wipes away the fog from the mirror, barely seeing Cardin offering him a casual wave from behind in the reflection. By the time he turns around, Cardin's already gone from the bathroom and Jaune's left alone with the steam from the showers still hiding much of the washroom and his confusion. But in end he feels much better when he returns back to his room, already finding the rest of his team up with Nora wearing Ren's cloak and jumping on his bed while Sir Scrabbles is attached to Ren's neck.

Pyrrha's the first one to notice him come in, blinking once at his still dripping hair, "Hello, Jaune. How was your morning?"

He shrugs his shoulders, brushing a stray hair away from his vision, "Fine."

...

Drumming his pencil aimlessly on his notebook, Jaune's nerves feel drained as he listened to Professor Port go on and on about the wonders of the Grimm. And it's not typical boredom that sedates him. No. It's listening to his professor talk about the Grimm in a way that made the Arc question the man's profession and apparent expertise he had on the subject matter at hand. Never before has he ever been so intent on listening to the old man's stories.

"Remember class! A Grimm will always fight even when injured!" That was a lie. "They're beast that cannot be reason with!" Nope. "They cannot be trusted!" Tell that to Nora and her love for Sir Scrabbles. "Never show them an ounce of mercy because they won't hesitate to rip your throat out!" Jaune's starting to wonder how much Professor Port actually _knows_ about the Grimm. "Let me tell you a tale when a ripped off a Nevermore's wings with my bare hands—!"

And that's when Jaune tunes him out, finding solace in the sketches he's made of a dark Lore blade by accident when he peers down on his notebook. The sword is pitch black and is missing parts of the sketch due to some wall Jaune can't seem to overcome—basically the hilt of the blade. It's easy to draw Gravity and Black Hole, those are techniques he can physically reach out for, but this sword still eludes him. Haunting him even in his random doodles and that vexes the Arc.

 _Especially if more Grimm decide to attack. Your Lore already can't do anything to fight back if it comes to that._

Jaune's pencil almost snaps in half as Ren's words come back to haunt. Maybe it's looking at the picture of the half-finished Lore blade or hearing Professor Port talk about the Grimm, but he hated the feeling of powerlessness that overcame him at the mere mention of fighting the Grimm. That's a feeling he hasn't had in a while. And it's not one he's too keen on inviting over anytime soon.

Angry with himself, Jaune presses his pencil down to finish the drawing, connecting led with paper in an effort to make the hilt, but stops himself. No matter how much he tries to move his hand, the pencil won't budge because he just _doesn't_ know what the blade looks like. No clue whatsoever. So it's impossible for him to draw something he cannot imagine, visualize, see, and _feel_.

Glaring at the fragmentary drawing, he gives up for now, flipping to the next page of his notebook to doodle an Aura shard and then a Lore shard instead. Other than trying to unlock the mysteries of Aura and Lore, he's still got to head over to Vale and pick up more white Dust shards. Not exactly something the Arc _wants_ to do, but doesn't really have much choice unless he wants to forgo Aura shards altogether. And that's just a whole other bottle of issues he rather avoid opening since Nora absolutely adores those rock candies and taking them away would be problematic all on its own.

Never mind the aftermath.

...

Not even walking more than three steps into his first day of Dust class and Weiss is already roughly shoving something into Jaune's hands that has an oddly familiar cold touch to it. The tiny frown on her normally elegant face is something Jaune's used to, just not when he hasn't messed up yet. It's rare if not never that Weiss is ever actively mad before he even throws in a greeting. She's more reserved than that. So either she's taking her undirected anger at him for something someone else did or she's in a crabby mood today and Jaune Arc should trend lightly or face the wrath of a hundred and ten pound Snow Angel.

"Here," Weiss leaves him without another word, trending only to pick up the assignment and take a seat that's known as their lab station. There she waits patiently for Jaune to sit down, reading over the assignment dully in the meantime.

Checking his arms, Jaune's surprised to find the special ice Dust shard Weiss had worked so hard on abandon in his hands. The cool touch of the shard hums lightly on his skin and feels delightfully pleasant, to the point Jaune has to keep the shard gripped tightly between his fingers so the rest of the sensation doesn't spread throughout his body.

Walking over, he reaches their work station and takes a quiet seat, waiting for Weiss to make the first move. She doesn't. Jaune apparently has to reach out for the both of them because the Heiress is too stubborn to budge.

"Uh, Weiss?" he shakes the Dust shard in his hand. "What's this for?"

She makes no attempt to look at him but answers his question, "It's the ice shard we worked on. Turns out it's only good for freezing objects the very moment you add Aura. It's impossible to use in a combat situation and requires an influx of constant Aura to even maintain the effect." There's a lace of disappointment in her voice, "It's useless. Even _all_ the Dust scientist at the Schnee Company said so."

Blinking at the shard, Jaune added some Aura and the cooling effect intensified, almost freezing his hand in place. In a way, if this is the payoff of using this shard, then it's technically useless. But still, "But why are giving this to me?"

She shrugs her shoulders, losing her glare momentarily, "I have no use for it. I've been meaning to give it to you anyways. You could have it if you want. You already have the other one. Throw them away or break them. It no longer matters to me." Her frown grows, "It was a waste of my time."

Now he sees the problem, "Hey! C'mon! You invented a new type of ice Dust! That's not a waste of time. Who knows? I bet someone could really use this one day! You never know!" Jaune attempts to grab her shoulder as an act of support, but Weiss shrugs it off immediately. Something tells him there's more to this than meets the eye. "... Are you mad at me?"

"Yes."

Wow, straight to the point, "Why?"

Her anger returns and this time she's actually looking at him, "I was up all night trying to soothe Ruby and Yang after you're little prank," Jaune's about ready to deny her claim but Weiss shuts him up with a tired glare. "Don't bother lying. Blake already told me you had something to do with it."

Not sure what to say, Jaune smiles weakly, "I'm sorry?" Weiss turns her head away, adding a crossing of her arms to drive her point home. "Okay, what do I got to do to make it up to you? Anything! Just ask."

Fixing him a sideways glare, Weiss pouts her lip and moves her fingers up and down on her arm, "I'll think of something."

Figuring his Fate was sealed one way or another, Jaune looks down at the Dust shard Weiss created, knowing his friend didn't waste her time no matter how much she beats herself over it. Okay, maybe it's not the most practical Dust shard, but so weren't the white, brittle ones that he's somehow found a way to turn into Aura shards. If he's learned anything from Weiss and her Dust lessons, it's no Dust is useless, no matter how fragile or inconvenient.

But somewhere along the way, Weiss Schnee forgot about that and has given up.

Clutching the Dust shard firmly, Jaune swore on his family's name to find some way to repay Weiss. Because along the lines of everything that has happened to Jaune, Weiss has largely contributed to the creation of his Aura shards and even gave him the power to save Nora's and Pyrrha's life.

 _None_ of that was a waste of time.

...

Some things never change. Like the sun rising or the moon shining above their heads in the dead of night or even Blake tailing Jaune from the shadows so she can read in peace in his team's room during lunch. Though he doesn't see the point of her sneakiness? Maybe she's just bored and needs something to do. Maybe she's polishing up on her ninja skills. Perhaps even both. Or perhaps even none.

Hard to tell with Blake and her forever mission to be secretive and closed off.

Reaching his team's room, Jaune's not surprised when Blake suddenly pops out of the corner with one of her books locked between her fingers with a light, smile adorning her features. It's only until she's standing right beside him that he can see how weak her smile truly was or even how much force she put in to making it.

Letting her in, Jaune just remembers one crucial detail he forgot to warn Blake about and her catlike eyes are already zeroing in on Sir Scrabbles perched on top of Ren's pillow with one of Pyrrha's socks in its claws the moment she takes a step into Team JNPR's room. Both sets of eyes blink at the Grimm lazing around in the room with prey and predator exchanging no words between each other. Then, before he can say or do anything, Blake's already rushing into his room and towards the sloth Grimm.

"Blake! No!"

Panicking, Jaune quickly focuses his Aura to stop Blake from doing something drastic that will undoubtedly hurt Nora, but comes to a sudden stop when he feels no pressures from Blake's nonexistent Aura. Instead, he's met with a scene he didn't think could ever happen. Not with Blake Belladonna at least.

Hugging Sir Scrabbles tightly, Blake presses the Grimm close to her chest, "And who's this little guy?"

Confused, it takes a moment for Jaune's brain to restart and when it does, Blake has made herself comfortable on Ren's bed with the sloth settled between her legs. One of her hands is rubbing her fingers through the Grimm's head, messing with the pitch black fur while the other is still holding her book yet she's not making any attempt at reading it, diverting her attention between him and the Grimm.

She's waiting for an answer, "That's Sir Scrabbles. Nora's new pet. It's a sloth." Thinking logically for a second, "Don't tell anyone about him."

Rubbing the little guy's head, Blake hums, "Don't worry. I'm good at keeping secrets." Something tells him that Blake would just prefer to hog the Grimm all to herself. "Mmm, Sir Scrabbles. I like that name."

Crisis averted, Jaune's able to let go of the breath he didn't know he had been holding, taking immense relief when Sir Scrabbles only peered up at Blake as she opened her book. Strange enough, their darken appearance matched really well, like Ren and Sir Scrabbles and Jaune has to wonder if Blake even knows if Sir Scrabbles is a Grimm or simply doesn't mind.

From a different point-of-view, without the bone platting or murderous glint that most Grimm have, Sir Scrabbles looks like any other sloth to anyone else. Just pitch black and with large, emotionless blood eyes. So Jaune can see how Blake can't tell Sir Scrabbles is a Grimm. He just can't figure out how the monster managed to capture her heart in the span of a few seconds. Nora he can understand. But Blake's not made out of sugar, spice, and everything nice.

Lost, Jaune can't help but compare the two to maybe find some common link between them, except for the nonobvious one he cannot see. They're kind of alike. Sir Scrabbles and Blake both have emotionless eyes. Both favors the color black—although that's not much of a choice for Sir Scrabble's case. And neither one of them like to make much noise. Next thing he's going to learn is that they both like lazing around during a warm, summer's day. Now wouldn't that be something?

Unable to solve one of life's great mysterious, Jaune decides to stay in the room to avoid any unnecessary trouble that may happen if he leaves Blake alone with Sir Scrabbles. If anything happened to the little guy, Nora would be absolutely devastated. And Jaune's not too sure Ren would just stand back and let Nora be sad and teary-eyed.

"Thanks," he lies down on his bed, trying to catch on some sleep he missed because of Nora's pet and makes the mistake at looking at Blake one more time. For a moment, he watches with the seconds soon turning into minutes and the idea of sleep soon becomes a distant dream. "Hey? Blake? What's wrong?"

A slight pause is the answer he receives as Blake's eyes narrow for the briefest of moments. Even now it's too late to hide her surprise, both Jaune and Sir Scrabbles see through her mask she quickly fixes. Yet she fights anyways. Hoping to hide whatever emotions she has away from them.

"Hn? Me? Nothing. I'm perfectly fine."

Of course the Arc doesn't believe a word she says. It would be more convincing if Sir Scrabbles didn't refuse to take its eyes off of her. It's attracted to her that much Jaune sees. And that could only mean one thing. She's feeling a semblance of sad or anger dwelling inside. Only except she's keeping it bottled up. Typical Blake.

Normally, Jaune would leave it alone since Blake's not exactly an emotional type of person but his inner instincts don't believe in that idea. Not anymore. Talking about their problems is like tradition by now. Not talking about them would be breaking tradition and that's not something Jaune Arc can do.

Breaking tradition is like breaking an Arc's words—doesn't happen. Especially not with his friend hurting inside, "No... you're not."

"Oh?" she challenges hotly, hardly lowering the book. There's a thin vile of distrust in her words, "And how do you know that?"

Sitting up, he points at her book, "Well, first you've been stuck on the same page for about six minutes now and you normally only need two to finish. And your eyes aren't even settled on the book, they're looking off to the side."

Lowering her book completely, Blake's normally composed features have fallen away. Leaving nothing but utter confusion and a hint of emotion in her tone, "You noticed that?"

He grins, "Of course! We're friends!"

Might just be his imagination, but Blake's bow lowered, "It's not your problem to deal with."

Jaune scoffs, standing up now, "Didn't I just say we were friends? And friends don't let friends hurt inside. Any problem you're dealing with is my problem too! There's no way I'm going to let you be sad while I'm trying to help!"

Widening her eyes, Blake puts down her book and looks down, lightly hugging Sir Scrabbles close to her chest. Somehow the Grimm acts as a great stress reliever as Blake finally looks back up to Jaune, hesitant and not exactly scared, but timid.

"It's more of an issue I rather discuss with my team."

He understands that completely and smiles sympathetically, "Then talk to them."

Blake loses her nervous expression to only adopt an annoyed one, "They're all too busy with their own problems to notice. Yang and Ruby are stuck in their own little world and Weiss is too busy sulking quietly over her own problems. We're a team, but we're not." There's that sadness he was looking for, "They don't care."

Jaune doesn't have to believe to know that's not true, surprising Blake from the passion lacing his words, "That's dumb. Trust me, they care. They just need a little push."

"And if they _don't_ care?"

"You and I both know that's _not_ true."

Not knowing what else to say, Blake pressed the Grimm closer to her chest, finding comfort in the black sloth. Jaune wonders how Blake would react if she knew Sir Scrabbles was a Grimm? Then he pushes that amusing idea aside to sit next to Blake with his posture the same as hers, minus Sir Scrabbles.

His smile remains strong and heavy, filling the atmosphere with positiveness and hope. No words are said but Jaune knows his message got to her; she's just busy trying to sort the meaning all out. And that's fine. He'll sit here as long as it takes. No matter what, he's not moving.

Eventually his patience and friendship pays off when Blake smiles softly without any of hidden emotions lurking behind, "When did you get so good at giving pep talks?"

"When did you start reading in our room?"

Blake's smile grows and Sir Scrabbles boops her on the nose.

...

Lunch ends and combat class feels different for Jaune. Not in the sense _he's_ feeling any different. No, it's his partner Pyrrha who can't seem to muster up a smile for some strange reason. Usually she's all high spirits about beating some poor sap down into the ground, but he's noticed she's been slowing losing the enthusiasm for Professor Goodwitch's class for a while now. Before even they took their two week break in Emerald Forest.

At the time, Jaune hadn't thought much of it. Chalking it up to maybe Pyrrha just wasn't feeling well. But now he's worried. Worried and deeply confused to why Pyrrha isn't smiling in her favorite class or why she's not volunteering like usual.

"Jaune Arc!" Jaune jumps at the sound of his name being called and he looks down to the arena to already see his opponent waiting for him. And he's not sure whether if the universe has it out to get him. "Please hurry up and get down here."

"Yea, Jaune-Jaune!" Nora grins down from below with Ren's trusty StormFlower gripped tightly in each of her fist. There's a mechanical gleam in her eyes, mixed alongside her poisonous smile. "Hurry up and get your butt down here! Don't make me come up there, Fearless Leader!"

Sighing to himself, Jaune reluctantly overlooks his partner's quiet deposition to walk down the steps to the arena and get the slaughter over with. He's already concentrating his Aura and can feel Nora's Space crashing down on him with every inch of pressure. The Arc almost halts in his movement, feeling something amiss with Nora's Space, but manages to keep moving to avoid any unneeded suspicion.

It's stronger. Nothing compared to her Aura when she was lying in bed all those days or still recovering from Lore infecting her system. Nothing simple like that. That would be purely easy to understand. But this current discovery is making the hairs on his neck stand up.

Feeling something wrong, he silently thinks to himself as he makes his way down, unable to understand where the stronger Space was coming from. Sure, she got stronger during the training trip, there's no denying that, but he could've sworn he knew the limit to extent she reached back in Emerald Forest before the Lore shard incident happened. There's just no way she gained this much power between then and now without him noticing.

Something must have happened to her Aura when he wasn't paying attention. Some strange power or some strange _spark_ must've ignited a part of her soul? Because this strange boost of power oddly reminds him when he first used Lore, his control over Aura just skyrocketed after that faithful day. Even the turquoise Aura around Nora isn't as chaotic as it normally is. Although, he does notice a bit of oddly shaped static currents orbiting around her frame that definitely hadn't been there before.

Could Lore have been the cause of this? Did having Lore in her system do something to her Aura? Or is it something else entirely? Some larger problem he's just not seeing? He can't see any other possible reason to why her Aura has reached a whole new level of power in a very short period of time. Nor he could find the excuse to whisk her away and test the results of this confusion in the privacy of their room.

Oh well. If nothing else, there's no better time to test the limits of her newfound Aura control than right now. In Professor Goodwitch's class with all his friends and peers silently judging him.

How... exhilarating.

"So... I see you're still using your teammate's weapons?" Professor Goodwitch comments easily with her face indifferent when Jaune finally makes it down. "How long do you plan to keep up this team building exercise, Mr. Arc?"

That's right. Team JNPR's currently lying to Professor Goodwitch, using each other's weapons to cover up Pyrrha's lack of a weapon and to make Jaune look weak in comparison for the upcoming Vytal Tournament. Throwing off suspicion and making their team look like an unstable bomb about to go off was just a bonus for the upcoming Vytal Tournament.

Still fixated on Nora's Aura, Jaune's eyes are only locked onto Nora's predatory grin, "That's a secret."

It's not a lie. It's not the truth. It's a little of both. Nonetheless, Professor Goodwitch accepts the answer because over the weeks Jaune's been improving—even if it's in hand-to-hand combat and not swordplay—and she doesn't want him to fail and fall back down after all the improvements because she forced him to rely on a weapon he didn't seem to good on wielding from the start. And the rest of Team JNPR never complained about their weapon switches.

Smirking lightly, Professor Goodwitch fixes her glasses in place. "Begin!"

Shuffling his feet back, Jaune squares his shoulders while keeping his legs light and hands centered towards his chest. If anything's come out of Nora's insane idea, it's his appreciation for hand-to-hand fighting. The Arc can't say there are no uses on only relying on one's body to fight even if his forms are barely sloppy at best. In more ways than one, he's even quicker on his feet and more observant when it comes launching an attack than humbly thrusting, hacking, or slashing Excalibur around.

And using only his hands does give him a reason to use his Aura without Crocea Mors disrupting it.

Seeing Nora dash forward, Jaune has to slide away to avoid the hailstorm of bullets she's raining down at him with a crackle and dangerous tint in her eyes. She's running closer to him, using the Dust embedded bullets to keep him on the defense, eventually getting within his personal circle and attempting to hack him with Ren's bladed guns.

Jaune uses his Aura enhanced reflexes to dodge a few of Nora's attacks, but not all of them when aimed for his chest, needing to keep up appearances for Ren's plan to work. Jaune has to lose. If Ren's plan is going to work, he has to appear weak and fragile. So even if he can keep up and quite possibly block and dodge Nora's barrage of attacks, he doesn't. Nora may be fast, but she's not _that_ fast. And the Arc has to force his Aura to deplete with more than average after each blow, willing it to not harden as armor around his body.

Appearances or not however, he can't just keep dodging forever, some of his peers actually expect a little out of him. And he can't say he's not sorely tempted to deliver a few well-earned fists right at her.

"C'mon, Jaune! You can do better than that!" Really, _really_ tempted!

Catching her wrist with his forearm and stopping her apparent slash coming down from above, Jaune takes a step into Nora's bubble and delivers a quick jab to her stomach, connecting another one soon after on her cheek and then nose. And throughout the short ordeal, he both noted how Nora's static force field came and focused on the area he hit her and how her Space didn't decrease much in pressure as he came to expect.

Brushing off Jaune's attack, Nora shakes her head and glares gleefully at her leader, feeling strangely better after getting nicked. Her blood feels hot and there's this pleasant tingle traveling throughout her body that reminds her of the sensation of goose bumps crawling up her skin.

Taking a swing, her leader's eyes widen as he jumps back, but she's not having any of that, already lunging forward before she can give Jaune a chance to breathe.

"She's faster?" Jaune whispers, narrowly dodging another cut aimed for his cheek. He tries to block her arm with his, but is stunned when her strength surpasses what she normally dishes out. "She's stronger?"

Dodging a swipe aimed for his shoulder, Jaune carefully experimented while landing a few strikes on Nora's chest, uppercutting her with enough force to drive her back. Each time he did, he noticed how that strange charge centered on each and every blow that had landed, effectively increasing the amount of pressure she was releasing while her Aura slowly depleted. And before he knows it, her speed has practically doubled and she's pushing him back with impossible strength.

Locked in a power struggle he could only overcome if he concentrates more on his Aura, Jaune barely has time to register that Nora's eyes have some electrical current running in them with her entire body feeling like a giant conductor before he slides back from her newfound strength. By now it's impossible for him to miss the tiny bits of electrical currents running up and down her body and how heavy her Space feels on his body. And he's not the only one perceiving the strange power, Nora, too, is staring down at her body with a rare, reserved expression.

Looks like Nora's just learning about her newfound level of Aura control as well.

Then her grin returns back stronger and she grips StormFlower tighter, feeling the electrical impulses running rampant in her body react to the weapon's metal coating. She doesn't know what's happening, but she feels freaking fantastic. Her muscles feel tight, just like when she ate her leader's Aura shards, except she's lacking any such handicap. Every cell in her body feels so energized each time Jaune manages to hit her that all she wants to do is fight until her legs give up on her.

Jaune Arc doesn't know this or Nora for that matter, but when Nora Valkyrie's body had been pushed to the brink of death back at Emerald Forest, her Aura fought valiantly to keep her alive, igniting a new spark to burn in her soul to live and grow kind of like the same way his Aura responded to his fight with the Death Stalker when his life was on the line. That sparked took a lot of time to manifest itself with little Aura to nurture it and help it grow as at the time, it all had been used to keep the host alive and away from Death's iron grip.

But the Valkyrie, free of her deathbed and not yet ready to join her family in the big hall in the sky, has risen as a new warrior from the ashes to become someone stronger to fight once more. A warrior who's learned to turn her opponents forces against him in the literal sense. Who refuses to fall in battle again after fighting off Lore trying to corrupt her system. But in an ironic twist of Fate, Lore is what made her Aura and semblance evolve.

Turning kinetic energy and vibrations received from _physical_ attacks into electrical currents, Nora's semblance has evolved to the point of becoming a shock absorber, utilizing damage and backlash for her personal gain. Each blow her body takes only fuels the electrical currents running rampant in her body, and before long, she's reached a new limit to where she can feel the buildup of static residual dancing across her fingertips. Almost to the point she can call the electricity to obey her!

Lost within the euphoria of power and having no way in controlling the energy, Nora's emotions become clouded from the increase of currents running through her muscles and she dashes forward at Jaune with renewed speed and strength. Her Fearless Leader manages to catch her wrists before she can bring down Ren's weapons on his shoulder, although, the raw physical exertion alone brings him to his knees. She can even see static building on his fingers.

Forced to up his Aura concentration, Jaune manages to push Nora off and look to Professor Goodwitch without missing a beat, "I forfeit."

The bomber's eyes widen as her leader drops his stance, eyeing her critically, "You're giving up?! No!" she cries. "Things were just starting to get good!"

"Sorry, Nora!" Jaune grins without any real sympathy. He even adds in a mock wave, "You're just too strong."

"That is for the best," Professor Goodwitch throws in, smiling lightly at the boy and impressed with Jaune's progress. "The match was Miss Valkyrie's, but you did well to fend her off and even knew when to retreat. You're making headway."

It's hard to make the leader of Team JNPR blush in embarrassment from praise. Glynda Goodwitch does it without even trying.

Releasing the tension in his shoulders, Jaune motioned for Nora to follow him back up to the stands where the rest of their team was watching while she pouted at the unfairness of ending the match early. No one seems to have notice Nora's sudden power up except for them two. Just as Jaune thought, knowing no one else can see Aura or measure the physical strength on a person from simply observing a match.

When they make it to their team, Professor Goodwitch has already set up another match and Team JNPR can hear the fighting going off in the background, but their leader's tense eyes make it impossible to look anywhere else. He's quiet for a moment, silently staring at Nora who suddenly feels small under Jaune's unnatural apprehensive glare. Even Ren's feeling the pressure of Jaune's eyes on Nora.

"Jaune?" Ren tries to ask, but his leader is already answering.

"Team meeting after dinner," he says with finality and looks away towards the new fight going on.

They don't try to get anything out of him, knowing full well he doesn't want anyone to hear what he wants to discuss if it has anything to do with Aura. Pretty much all of Team JNPR is shrouded in a cloak of secrets. It's nothing new. Just seeing their leader acting so serious all of a sudden is throwing them in one heck of a loop. But they all have other things to think about.

Especially Pyrrha who has a sort of longing in her eyes as she watches students fight with their weapons. Only fueling her desire to hurry up and start this secret she wants to test. Almost to the point of desperation. And desperation can lead people down a dangerous path.

...

Dinner comes and goes without much commotion and before they know it, they're back in their room. Lucky for Jaune, Blake's taking his advice to heart and has left to go talk to her team with a newfound vigor and beaming confidence. Although, no one would be able to tell unless they really knew Blake's facial expressions and body language from spending so much with the bookworm. To anyone else, she's relatively fine.

Reaching for his Aura notebook, Jaune stands in the middle of the room with his team waiting for him to start this team meeting. It takes a moment for him to get his wits right, flicking through some pages of past notes before he shuts the notebook closed and stares keenly at Nora.

"Nora? What's your semblance?"

She's caught off-guard, frown forming, "To control electricity and all electrical currents." She adds quickly, "All that electrical stuff makes my muscles even stronger."

That's the first time he heard about the muscles bit, but that makes total sense to him if that's always been a major factor of her semblance. What doesn't however, "I thought you said you needed an outside source in order to use it?"

"I do."

He knows she's telling the truth; Nora's not very good at lying, not under pressure at least. So he takes a seat on his bed, fixing Nora a glare while he concentrated on his Aura. "Focus on your Aura."

Part of her wants to ask _why_ but Jaune's rare glare makes her comply and she spots his eyes widening ever so slightly when she concentrates. She feels nothing different, but clearly her Fearless Leader sees something else entirely. And it's when he's flipping through his Aura notebook again that's she acutely curious to what he sees. Even more so as he begins to sketch on a page already filled with timeworn sketches, taking every few seconds to stare back at her before adding more to the picture he's drawing.

Silence surrounds the room with only the sound of Jaune's pencil scratching against the fabric of paper. Time moves too slowly for everyone apart from Jaune, but he's done before the silence becomes too much to bare, already showing off the sketch he's drawn.

He's pointing at an old sketch with bubbly Aura, "This _was_ what your Aura looked like before, Nora." He then points at a new sketch with a tiny electrical current surrounding the Aura. "And this is what your Aura looks like _now_. See the difference?"

They all do.

"What does this mean?" Pyrrha asked.

Jaune sighs, losing his glare, "I don't know. I've never seen someone's Aura change before. I'm guessing the Lore you ate might be at fault here. I'm not too sure. So far all your Auras have remained relatively the same and I never thought they can change. But now I do know they can and it happened during our fight."

Nora grabs the Aura notebook, looking down at the pictures, "What about our fight? Was something wrong with my Aura?"

Jaune immediately noticed Ren getting tense and Sir Scrabbles making an appearance from under his covers. The sloth Grimm is already being plucked away from his bed sheets from Nora who's coddling the Grimm in a comforting hug. Only ironic for a Grimm and a human yet completely effective in drowning out the sudden uneasiness in the room.

"I'm not sure, but I have an idea." Standing up, he motions Nora to follow, making sure to leave Sir Scrabbles on the bed, "Don't stop concentrating on your Aura. I'm going to hit you and don't worry Ren. I'm not going to hit her too hard."

Grinning at Ren's expression, he hits Nora on the shoulder lightly, noting how the electrical current focused on his point of contact. Meanwhile, Nora's looking down at her shoulder, feeling a sudden buildup of shock she hadn't noticed before during their spar. Jaune then hits her again on her forearm and the same mechanics happen with that buildup of shock dispersing throughout her entire body. And before long, Jaune's hitting her harder and the buildup keeps increasing with every blow.

Ren almost reaches out to stop him when Nora actually stumbles back from a strike, but he stops when Nora begins to laugh.

"Whoa!" she breathes happily, feeling a powerful electrical current beating all over her body. "I feel awesome! Like I can take on a whole army of Grimm! What's happening?"

Losing all forms of seriousness, Jaune smiles weakly, "Honestly, I don't know. That's what I'm trying to figure out. During our fight the same thing was happening every time I hit you. It's like... it's like. I don't know," he gives up, not really good with words. "It's—?"

"It's like your semblance managed to find a way to turn any force turned against you into raw, physical power." Ren adds in, poking Nora's shoulder and feeling a slight residue of static backlashing at him. "You're like a walking... shock absorber."

Nora pokes her own shoulder, feeling the electrical buildup. She almost feels as powerful as when she eats one of Jaune's Aura shards, "Huh? What's that supposed to mean?"

"Shock absorption is the process where kinetic energy and vibrations from an opposite force is absorbed and converted it into electricity or other forms of power. Namely, absorbing shock reduces the force acting upon each other while gaining something for nothing!" Pyrrha answers confidently and she's met with three sets of eyes, all blank, all very, _very_ lost. Eventually, she fidgets in place, openly embarrassed. "What? Am I the only who pays attention to Professor Port's lessons?"

This only confuses the rest of the team more.

"So what you're saying is..." Nora hums seconds later, shifting her hands out as if she's holding a box. "I can turn punches and kicks into raw power?"

Pyrrha nods and Jaune's adding that note into his Aura notebook, captured by the evolution of Nora's semblance and Aura. "That makes a lot of sense. Explains why every time I hit her, her Space kept getting stronger but her Aura was weakening. Somehow your Aura found a way to evolve. Why? I don't know. But this can come in handy for—Nora! Stop hitting yourself!"

Nora stops her fifth fist from making contact to her face and she's staring innocently at them with a bruise already forming on her cheek. Ren's on her before anyone else can react and he's pushing away her hands to check the bruise forming on her cheek, _tching_ as a small trail of blood begins to poor down her nose.

He quickly tilts her head up and accepts the tissue Pyrrha grabs for him, "Look what you did. You bruised your cheek and gave yourself a nosebleed."

She smiles a bloody grin at Ren, "Just wanted to see if hitting myself worked too." Judging off her misguided laugh, "It didn't. Sorry."

Pressing the tissue gently to her nose, Ren glares weakly at his clueless childhood friend, knowing full well he could've told her that without needing to know the properties of Aura. Still, here he was, stopping a nosebleed and rubbing the aching bruise that's already healing. Meanwhile, Sir Scrabbles climbs up his shoulder to get a closer look of Nora's nosebleed, captivated at the thought of a human hurting themselves and wondering why the Grimm even bother.

"Don't do that again, okay Nora?" Ren wipes the blood away from her nose, tossing the bloody tissue onto one of their desk. He's checking for any other damages, glare unbelievably intense that begins to melt her resolve. "No more self-inflicted injuries. Promise me."

She stands no chance, "Okay. I promise."

Glaring weakening, Ren rubs the spot where she struck herself, running his thumb gently over the sensitive spot. "... Stop making me worry so much." Her face begins to heat up, "Are you getting a fever now?" she shakes her head even though her face continues to heat up.

Not wanting to break up the little moment but knowing he has to, Jaune shuts his Aura notebook and looks at the retreating sun in the background. The day's gone faster than he had hoped and it was going to get dark soon. He prefers to pick up the white Dust shards now before the sun sets than hold it off for another day. Maybe he can even get some Lore training down before it was time for lights out.

"Okay, okay, Nora's no longer hurt and she's not sick. We can work more on her semblance later. It's time to head to Vale!" Jaune declares, knowing Nora loves going to Vale for any reason and any excuse to get away from Ren's magic fingers. "So c'mon, hurry up already... unless you guys don't want any more Aura shards?"

Nora's already pulling Ren towards the door and Pyrrha's standing right beside Jaune, "I do still need to pick up something as well."

He fixes her a smile, "You gonna tell me what you're getting?"

She doesn't give him an answer, only smiling wistfully at her leader before embarking on the quest to reach Nora and Ren. Jaune, in the meantime, shakes his head, amused at the karma of secrets being thrown at him. At least he knows she's being opened about it, but damn is he curious.

He runs out after them, barely stopping as he searched his pockets in haste. When he doesn't find what he's looking for, he's yelling down the hall, "Just go one without me! I'll catch up in a minute! I left my wallet back in the room!"

By the time he finds his wallet—under Nora's mattress of all places—Sir Scrabbles is looking at Jaune from underneath Ren's sheets. Jaune takes a moment and closes the blinds, petting the Grimm on the head before running out the door while yelling over his shoulder.

"Stay here and guard the room."

Obviously it's a joke but some part of Jaune thinks Sir Scrabbles understands him when he gets a yelp sound in return and Team JNPR's leader is too confused when he runs out his room. When he's done getting his thoughts focused, it's after crashing into someone in the hall while using Aura to increase his speed.

"Ah! Oh! Sorry!"

Jaune lands on the floor, looking up at whom he crashed into. A woman is glancing down at him with fiery eyes, a soft smile; ravish locks with her offering her hand to help him up. There are two others standing beside her. One is a girl with red eyes, darkish skin, and mint green hair. The other is a male with silver hair and a cocky grin that sort of resembles Cardin's.

"No worries," she says so kindly, helping him. "Next time you should probably _watch_ where you're going. I can't imagine running while looking the other way can be easy."

"Yea," Jaune grins, rubbing his neck awkwardly. "My bad. I'll work on it. By the way, I'm Jaune. I don't think I've ever seen you in this dormitory before?"

Her orange and fire eyes burn with intensity, "We're visiting from Haven actually. For the Vytal Tournament I'm sure you know." Jaune fights the urge to groan. He hates being reminded about the tournament.

"Oh..." Jaune blinks, pointing his finger towards the eastern side of Beacon. "You do know the exchange students' dorm is that way, right?"

"Heh, looks like we just got a little lost," said the guy with the silver hair. He seems fun.

"Oh, believe me," Jaune laughs. "I know how that feels. I got lost on my very first day here at Beacon. Happens to the best of us! Just head that direction and you should be fine."

They walk past him except for the fiery woman who takes a moment to observe him. To recognize him, "Thanks... by the way, aren't you on the team chosen by Vale to compete in the Vytal Tournament?"

This time Jaune does groan, "Uh... yea, Jaune Arc at your service. I'm the leader of Team JNPR." At the mere mention of his team, Jaune panics and quickly concentrates his Aura, already running past her. "I'm sorry! I just remembered I'm late for something." He does a quick stop, smacking himself on the head before running back up to her, "Where are my manners? Welcome to Beacon!"

Now he runs away from her, offering the woman a halfhearted wave as he turns a corner, never noticing the woman's eyes burning with a low intensity. He never even got her name.

...

Catching up with his team and reaching the Dust shop takes little time and no effort; it's actually ringing up the price of Dust that's become the problem. And Jaune Arc or any of his team for that matter is none too thrilled about the sudden skyrocket in price for even the most _useless_ of Dust.

Seeing the price for the brittle Dust, Jaune bangs his head on the counter, "What do you mean Dust prices have gone up?"

The old man manning the counter smiles regretfully at Jaune, unable to help out too much, "Sorry, youngster. With all the recent Dust robberies, Vale barely has enough to go around. Even the cheapest stuff is selling for four times they're face value."

All Jaune hears is that he's only able to get one-fourth the amount of white Dust shards he wants. That's _if_ they even have that much. "How much white Dust do you have left?"

The old man checks and comes back with a handful, "Only about twenty shards or so."

Sighing to himself, Jaune reaches for his wallet, figuring he might as well buy the remaining Dust shards before prices even go higher and he can't even afford one measly shard. Pyrrha offers to throw in some of her money but the Arc waves off her concern, saying something along the lines of it being his responsibility for team leader and all that whimsical nonsense. So she excuses herself, searched through a section of the store and comes back with a book between her hands that she pays for herself. And when it's all said and done, they walk out the Dust shop with their leader all sad and mopey.

Nora tries to cheer him up by offering him a great big hug and Jaune politely declines, not wanting to be crushed under her strength. Didn't matter in the end, she hugged him anyways, squeezing the Arc in a death struggle. And he won't admit it, but the hug did make him feel a tad bit better. Not great.

But better.

...

When they get back to their room, Nora immediately searches for Sir Scrabbles and feeds him an Aura shard Jaune made _just_ for him. Meanwhile, Pyrrha takes the dried tissue of blood from the desk and various bandages she's kept stored in her bag with the book in her hands and leaves the room with sudden determination. She tells them it's all part of her super-secret training and they decide to let her be, liking the payback their Fearless Leader is getting. More so when Jaune tries to appear uninterested and totally fails at it.

Plus, it gives them all time to do their own things. Nora to love and cuddle Sir Scrabbles, Ren to relax and eat more of his health foods, and Jaune to practice more on his Lore control in hoping to achieve the damn sword he can't imagine at the far end of the room and away from Nora. Occasionally, the bomber asks if Ren can help her practice her newfound Aura control and she's met with a glare that says no and does things to her.

Back to Pyrrha, she reaches the rooftop where Jaune and she used to train before _everything_ happened. All the memories are still fresh and a sad smile crosses the champion's face from all the good and bad memories. Part of her misses those times but another part of her is happy Jaune's strong enough to no longer need her. Isn't that what all teachers want for their students?

Taking a seat on the cool concrete, Pyrrha lays out all the articles of cloth that contain some kind of blood, spreading them all out evenly. She then opens the book she purchased on the human body, quickly flipping to the pages that had to do with blood. Most of what she reads flies over her head, a little too complicated or not interesting her peeked and focused interest until she finally reads something along the words of iron.

Scanning the page, she learns that blood needs iron in order to help move oxygen from a person's lungs to their entire body. The iron itself is comprised together with a protein called hemoglobin, making up two-thirds of the body's iron composition. Less iron meant less healthy red-blood cells which in turn meant less oxygen being supplied throughout the whole the body. Not only that, but blood's chemical formula consists of other elements as well.

That would also explain why blood takes like iron in her mouth.

How fascinating.

Now she can see why her leader likes learning about his strengths.

Although, she doesn't know what she can do with other elements with them all being nonmetal, but she makes sure to remember they exist because that's what Jaune would do. Maybe someday she'll find some other use for them. Maybe not. It's a weighing factor in the future if they're even worth her time.

Setting the book aside, Pyrrha concentrates on her Aura with her hands hovering over the bandages and tissues of her team's and her blood. "Okay, let's do this."

She's not trying to control the blood—that much she's learned from the reading—instead she focuses her time and energy on the Fe molecules embedded inside the blood's chemical composition. Blood isn't metal, but the iron holding the chain of blood is. That was her mistake from the beginning back at the cabin—focusing all her time and energy on the blood as a whole. This time she knows what to look for. Knows what to concentrate on.

Only downside, after half an hour of useless struggling and judging off the book's notes, Pyrrha's learn she can't concentrate on the blood she has as the iron inside has seem to have rotten away alongside the blood itself. Parts of it she can control and other parts are usable just not everything. Only Nora's recent bloody tissue seems to lightly respond to her call. And even then that's a give and pull system. The iron moves just fine, that she can feel.

Just not the blood.

Maybe if she didn't have dried blood it could work. Based off the book, blood needs to be kept cool to remain healthy for longer periods of time and the champion had neglected that.

Determined, Pyrrha focused all her Aura on Nora's tissue, feeling the tiny bits of iron respond to her call, but the blood fails to move on her command. The iron moves just fine, but with the chains of the blood work broken, that's all she's moving. Without life to sustain the crimson liquid, the reach she's looking for simply no longer existed for her to pull. No matter how much Aura she pours into it.

She needs blood not yet broken down. She needs fresh blood!

Looking between the parchments, Pyrrha moves them around and stops herself when she sees her own hand outstretched. An insane idea passes her and she almost ignores it, but rethinks to herself when she realizes all three of her teammates have followed their own versions of insane ideas and have come out on top. Maybe it was finally her time to shine?

"I won't know unless I try."

Smiling to herself, Pyrrha wonders if that's what Jaune thought when he had the idea of creating weapons from Aura. Did her leader just sit around and look up at the moon until everything just clicked?

Feeling more confident in her idea, Pyrrha looks back at her hand, forming a firm fist and releasing a light breath.

Calling out her semblance, Pyrrha's hand gets wrapped around by an invisible energy and she feels the metals all around her from Beacon's structure but she forgets about those and focuses intently on her body. Now that she knows what to look for hypothetically, it's not too hard to find what she's looking for once her mind is set on the task. She can feel the iron moving in her body and even sense some fragments of metals residing in her skin.

Dancing her fingers close to her forearm, Pyrrha wills the blood to move and is only slightly surprised when she feels a tiny pull of pressure binding down on her skin. She's not targeting the blood, only the tiny bits of iron and even then the blood beckons to her call.

Yet, it all confuses her to no end. If she can control her blood so well, why can't she make the dried up parchments of blood heed her call? Pyrrha can understand the idea of the blood breaking down, but how come in Emerald Forest she was able to will the blood outside her body to move? In theory, Pyrrha should be able to move the blood outside her body as well if that was the case.

It's just not making much sense to her.

Maybe this was what Jaune had felt when trying to discover the secrets of Aura as well? Frustrated and terribly confused.

Groaning, Pyrrha falls back and tries to recall if anything triggered her to force the blood to move, but nothing unusual comes up. And without any solid ideas or clues to why the blood moved the way it did back then, she's stuck on a different plan, one that's insane but that's why she's even tempted to do it in the first place. Because insane and Team JNPR might as well be synonyms in the dictionary.

Like the ancient one she brought back from that cabin in Emerald Forest.

Taking a quick, deep breath, Pyrrha looks down at her hand, forms a tight fist and releases it. Before she can stop herself, she sits up and moves up her thumb and takes a small bite on her skin, tearing it away and forced to will her Aura not to heal the injury immediately. It takes a moment, but a small splotch of blood travels down her thumb and into her palm, building up a small pool for her to see.

"Now or never."

Reaching out with her semblance, Pyrrha felt around for the iron residing in the blood, finding it in seconds and willing her control over the molecules. She then wills the iron to move up on her command, trying so hard to keep her control steady with the utmost amount of concentration she can call while keeping her Aura from healing the injury.

Then, to her forever amazement, the blood moves alongside the iron she's controlling, twisting upwards a few inches into the air. It moves within her control as she wills the blood to move in random directions, or more importantly, as she wills the iron to move in random direction. Years of controlling metal has made the process not to ambiguous or strain consuming and before long, she's creating a tiny ball of blood in the center of her palm. Yet, the very second she stops adding Aura to her blood is the moment the ball begins to become harder and harder to control until minutes later it breaks apart in her hand.

Just like how blood breaks apart without iron or life to keep it going.

But she's not sad, not angry, or any emotions that the Grimm find tasty. She's happy, "So it needs Aura, huh? Isn't that..." she can't believe she's going to say this, but it's a rare victory. " _Iron_ ic."

No wonder Yang likes making puns.

At least what happened in Emerald Forest made a lot more sense to the champion now. Her blood may have been outside her body, but it was still coated in a layer of Aura, the essence of life in a way. The chains holding the composition hadn't broken just yet because life was still all around it, thus having allowed her to command the metal resting inside and turn it into a weapon.

Strange what a person learns about themselves after a near-death experience.

Grinning, Pyrrha practices into the next hour, making more and more balls of blood until eventually getting enough blood out of her body to create a thin point of a lance before she starts to feel lightheaded and woozy. It's then she remembers she kind of _needs_ her blood if she wants to keep on living and stops practicing, channeling her remaining Aura to clear up the wound as she heads back inside with a slight wobble in her step.

Her skin is a mild paler, but not enough unless someone pays extra close attention. Even her confidence has lost some of its shine when she makes it back into her team's room before crashing down onto her bed, ignoring her team's concern because she simply does not have the energy to care anymore.

Though Nora does make that hard to do with her loud voice and it's the first time the blood crazed girl wants to take Nora up on her offer and hit her.

...

The next three days pass by with little concern, except for Nora taking each and every chance she can to take some form of physical damage, much to Ren's constant stress, and the end of the first week of the new semester is tomorrow. Pyrrha's only seemed to get more and more depressed with her progress and Jaune's noticed. He's made many attempts to ask her what's wrong, but his partner has shrugged it off as nothing, hiding behind fake smiles that oddly remind him of his. Nonetheless, Pyrrha's friends keep a close eye on her and she's grateful, but if her Fearless Leader can somehow find a way to create his weapons all on his own, then she can too!

Call it her champion pride! Call it stubbornness! Call it anything, but Pyrrha Nikos has always succeeded. Why should this challenge be any different?

Well, maybe it's because every passing hour makes the challenge seem more like a dream rather than an actual possibility. And the thoughts are hurting the girl's pride, destroying that confidence she's built up for herself throughout the months with her team who still try to get her to talk.

Damn her pride!

...

Stuck watching some of the exchange students fighting, Pyrrha sighs sadly as each student uses their own weapons to their fullest. She loves Crocea Mors, she truly does, and she'll never forget how selflessly her leader gave it to her when she needed a weapon, but Pyrrha misses having a weapon to honestly call her own. Maybe she's slightly envious of her leader and his weapons or maybe she's just missing having a weapon to beckon to her call and moved the way she wanted like Miló and Akoúo̱ had.

That had been her plan at first. Step one: solve the blood problem and then step two is make the problem a solution. But... things didn't turn out exactly as Pyrrha had hoped for the past few days after. She's run into a whole mess load of problems. Like blood's pesky problem to break down minutes after it leaves her Aura or how the liquid composition didn't exactly make it such a versatile weapon to begin with. And even then there's the problem of keeping it healthy outside of a fridge.

All of these problems posed a challenge for the champion that she doesn't know whether she can overcome them on her own. She doesn't even think they _can_ be overcome at all.

Discovering the problem hadn't made the solution any easier. So what if she can call out her blood to aid her in battle? Pyrrha rather not be bleeding if that's the case. Even if she does want to find a way to create a _bloody_ weapon—too easy Yang—there's no way she can keep supplying the blood, the Aura, and the concentration to keep the weapon available forever. Essentially, her dream and idea of creating a weapon from blood is an impossible one.

And that's pretty much drained away her happiness. Even to the point she's no longer faking smiles for her teammates. But the last straw comes with watching Ruby fight some kid and beat him down after turning her weapon into a sniper rifle, scythe, and then back into a sniper rifle in the span of a few seconds. Just watching Ruby be one with her weapon finally pushes Pyrrha over the edge.

So much that Pyrrha gets up the second combat class ends and hurries over to her team's room, pretending not to hear her leader's call. A part of her feels bad for keeping this a secret _now_. It wasn't supposed to be a problem but a blessing, but it turned into one and she didn't want to burden her team when they were all still trying to get used to their own powers. Like Ren and his cloak, Nora with her semblance upgrade, or Jaune and his Lore. They all had their own issues to deal with. And it's only after her teammates head towards their room with dinner for her that they learned what she has been doing all this time alone.

...

Jaune's the first in their room with Pyrrha's plate in his hand and it falls effortlessly out his palm as he's already running up to Pyrrha before the plate can even crash down on the floor. Ren and Nora are quickly right beside him as they take in Pyrrha's arms bloody appearance. But what shocks them the most is seeing a large cut on Pyrrha's palm with a blade in her hand over a bucket of blood.

"Pyrrha! What are you doing?!" Jaune yells, sliding up beside her to check for damages. He sighs in relief when the only actual damage is the cut on her palm and makes a grab for the knife.

She lets him take the knife away and answers as if it's the simplest thing in the world, "I needed more blood."

Looking up, Jaune's Aura overcomes him as his emotions get the better of him, "Need more blood for what?!"

She tries to look away, but Jaune's having none of that. Not after three days of worrying and walking onto her doing this of all things. And for what? Blood! Why did she need so much blood? Who needs this much blood?!

"Pyrrha," Jaune growls, already searching for an Aura shard to heal away the injuries she's inflicted on herself. He's willingly to look at her way if she meets him halfway, "Why do you need so much blood?"

Instead of answering him verbally, she reaches out towards the bucket that has fourth a liter of her own blood in it and wills to bend up. It does and Ren has to stop Nora from saying something childish under the serve circumstances. It moves so majestically that Jaune's stunned at how well she controls it... until it begins to break down slowly and Pyrrha has to let it sit.

"I was trying to find a way to turn my blood into a weapon," she says suddenly, breaking the silence. "It's not going so well. That was the secret."

Figuring out part of the problem, Jaune breathes heavily for a moment, looking between his partner and the bucket of blood in the middle of his room. Time doesn't even seem to be a factor as he's finished searching for an Aura shard for her to consume.

Pressing the crystal in her hands, Jaune closes her fingers around the shard, voice soft, "Why didn't you just ask for help?"

Taking the shard, she consumes the rock and feels her Aura levels almost return to normal. Yet she doesn't feel any better, "You _didn't_ need any help. You never asked for help. And it's not like I was _trying_ to hurt myself. It was the only source of blood I can find on a whim. I need fresh and healthy blood."

Finally seeing the whole picture, Jaune sighs, believing he should tackle each problem one at a time, "What do you mean? I asked for help. Ruby told me how a gun works and you taught me how a sword works. Even Weiss helped me with my Dust problems. I didn't just know off the top of my head how to create an Aura weapon or Aura shard. A lot of that came from some of my own hard work and help from others. Heck! Nora helped me reach the level I'm at today with her ridiculous Dust counting. _You_ even _gave_ me my Aura."

Feeling foolish now, Pyrrha tries to look away but Jaune grabs her shoulders, "Hey, hey, look at me. I could've never survived here at Beacon without _your_ help." Then he says something that makes everything alright. "It's okay to ask for help... no one's _invincible_."

Pyrrha's heart skips a beat at the mention of everyone's vulnerability. Unlike everyone else who thought she was some unbeatable champion, her leader and partner saw her just as another person. Just like their very first day at Beacon. Not some person on a level that cannot be reached. Not some pedestal that's too high for her to jump down from. None of that silly nonsense. Just another person who sees the good and bad inside her and doesn't shy away from her accomplishments.

Even now, after everything they've been through, he's still surprising her. Still being that awkward knight who she pinned to a tree in Emerald Forest and knew nothing about Aura, Grimm, or even how to wield a sword for that matter. And he couldn't have gotten this far without help. Especially how frustrated he got sometimes. Jaune Arc never shied away from asking for help.

He just had that pesky Arc pride to hold him back a little. Exactly like the stubborn champion pride that follows her shadow.

Smiling foolishly now, Pyrrha grabbed his hand, holding it up with hers that's been cut. "... Can you help me?"

He returns the smile, "Sure, now tell me— _tell_ _us_ what's wrong. Why can't you use the blood as a weapon? Which by the way sounds amazing!"

Laughing, Pyrrha goes into a lengthy detail to why creating a blood weapon is next to impossible. Her teammates listen, taking into account everything she says and Jaune's writing down some notes she can't even begin to imagine. Then when she's done, he looks down at the bucket of his partner's blood and frowns at the idea of Pyrrha constantly needing to hurt herself to gain access to her weapon. Just another one of the problems she's facing with this blood issue. Its way more complicated than Aura but just as important.

 _Rumble_!

Team JNPR looks towards Pyrrha's stomach and the girl blushes, "I'm going to go get some food before the mess hall closes."

The door to their room closes with a soft click as she runs out and they all sigh, with Jaune beating Ren by a long shot. He's even sitting on his bed, running his hands through his messy locks, glaring at the bucket of his partner's blood.

Jaune shakes his head, "I just don't get it. Why would Pyrrha purposely hurt herself to get blood? And all just to practice her control?"

"It's not so different compared to you," Ren counters smoothly. "You use your own Aura as a base for all your abilities. Aura normally is used as an armor and not really a weapon. Essentially, you're hurting yourself in the process as well by depleting that life force and leaving yourself vulnerable. Even Lore has its drawbacks. She's giving something up in order to gain something. Only difference, hers has a bigger cost compared to simply exhausting out your Aura but Pyrrha's willing to pay that cost to achieve results." Staring down at the container of blood, Ren's eyes centered on the murky reflection, "That's exactly what you did... just not so extreme."

"So what? We're just suppose to stand by while she continues to hurt herself?"

"I never said that. If we're going to help her, we have to overlook the negatives to see the positives." Jaune wants to argue but Ren raises a finger. "There were days all of us were scared you would exhaust your Aura to the point you would die, Jaune. Lucky for us, those ended up only being fears."

Quiet, Jaune sighs defeated, "Fine... but still! This is a big problem. How is Pyrrha supposed to fight with blood if it needs Aura to keep it within her control? _I_ don't know how to fix that."

"Not only that," Ren adds with the book Pyrrha was reading in his hand. "Blood rots overtime in warm temperatures, destroying the chemical composition. You need to find a way keep the blood stored in cold temperatures below six degree Celsius to even keep it working. And that's not something easy to fix for a fighter."

Kicking his feet back, Jaune looks down at the crimson liquid, wondering how he can have a constant influx of Aura to keep the fluid alive hypothetically. Not an easy problem for the Arc to solve, but the alternative of Pyrrha being sad and quite possibly hurting herself in the near future is too much to accept.

So far the only problem with multiple variables staring them in the face is simply preservation. Keep the blood cold and alive while having a large enough quantity of it is what they're aiming for here.

Jaune looks up, "Anyone got any ideas?" He's met with silence. Then he looks down at Sir Scrabbles clutching onto his leg while holding a tiny fragment of his Aura shard. "What about you, Sir Scrabbles? Got any bright ideas?"

The tiny Grimm tilts its head at Jaune before looking down at the bucket of blood that belongs to the blood haired woman's. Then, without warning, it tosses the Aura fragment into the bucket of blood, fixing Jaune a stare that almost conveys emotion before scampering off to Nora's waiting arms.

Yet, none of Jaune's attention is diverted to Nora and her excessive spoiling of humanity's greatest enemy, rather focused solely on the bucket with an Aura shard floating inside. He quickly concentrates on his Aura and spots a thin layer of pure Aura reflecting off in the blood component, clearly responding to the living part of the crimson liquid. The glow's weak, but then again, so was the fragment Sir Scrabbles threw inside the bucket.

Standing up, Jaune surprises his team when he fills a white Dust shard with the equivalence of three Supernovas, before crushing up the Aura shard in his hand and tossing the fragments into the vessel. A light glow shines from making contact with the blood, but Jaune's more absorbed on seeing if the Aura trapped inside is fading away.

It's not and he can't help but smile, "That's it! The Aura shards can keep the blood alive outside of Pyrrha's body!"

Amazed, Ren walks over to look down at the pool of blood, fixing the sight with a heavy glare from the rim of his cloak, "That solves one problem. But how can we keep the blood from rotting without needing to carry around a freezer or even have it maintain a physical form for long periods of time?"

"Yea," Nora cuts in, hugging Sir Scrabbles, sadden that Pyrrha has no way of creating her new weapons. "It's not like Pyrrha can just _freeze_ the blood anytime she wants. There's nothing that can do that."

Freeze?

The word echoes a few times in the Arc's mind, bashing his skull with a sadden memory of a certain Snow Angel. Sometimes Jaune Arc doesn't know if Nora Valkyrie is a genius or is just messing with him or even if possibly both. Maybe some point in the future he'll learn, but for now, he's busy searching through the contents of his drawer and bag for a particular pair of snow Dust crystals that were labeled by a committee of Dust scientist as _useless_.

When he finds them, he whispers a promise that he intends to keep, "They're not useless."

Ren peers over his shoulder, "What?"

Turning around, Jaune opens his palms for his team to see, smiling heroically as he shows off the Dust crystals Weiss created with love and care, "They're _not_ useless."

...

Pyrrha Nikos fully intended to go get dinner the moment she left her team's room. She really did, but some strange force was calling out to her and before she knew it, she was back at the resting place of her old weapons. Back at the place Jaune and her fought until Miló and Akoúo̱ met their end under Jaune's Aura weapons, Aura weapons that destroyed what was hers without much effort, proving how powerless metal stood up to Aura. Sometimes she thinks back to that time with even a ghost pain haunting her cheek from where he had cut her with Excalibur.

Her semblance allows her to find her broken weapons, leading her to the spot where the elements began to bury them and she reaches down to grab one.

Picking up the broken half of Akoúo̱, Pyrrha almost believes she can still feel the intense burn from the cut Jaune did to her after their intense power struggle that day. Maybe some strange part of her misses that feeling they felt during the fight. Misses their wills battling against each other for a different cause and struggle? Or perhaps she misses fighting with Akoúo̱ and Miló.

Looking around, Pyrrha finds half of Miló slowly succumbing to the elements. The cut's still clean even after all this time, and there's a distinct feeling lurking in her soul that tells of rust trimming along the edges of the shield even if she cannot see it. Nonetheless, she carefully picks it up from the floor before she sighs sadly, dropping the forgotten metal in the dirt after it's impossible to see her reflection shining back at her.

A harsh wind blows as the sun sinks in the horizon and stray strands of her free hair get tangled in her face. The blood from her hand has left a mark on the shield and she covers it up with more dirt, not wanting to see the damage she has caused but her hair doesn't let her forget, being the same color as the crimson mark she's left behind.

 _Rumble_!

Knowing now she should go get some dinner before she's forced to eat Ren's healthy alternative, Pyrrha takes a moment to glance one last time at her rusting weapons, saying goodbye to them before heading back to Beacon.

...

When Pyrrha returns to her team's room after eating, she expected to find her teammates still trying to solve her problems, not standing around _two_ buckets of what looks like to be more blood? Her suspicions grow as she spots the bandages wrapped tightly around all three of her friend's arms and Nora's beaming face. Even Ren's cloak can't conceal the light smile in his eyes and her heart soars.

"What's going on?"

Moving up, Jaune grabbed a bucket of what she can now see is more blood and slides it beside her foot, "What you needed help with. See?" she looks down and see many glowing fragments drowning in the liquid. "We solved it."

Pyrrha can't help but take a small step back, unable to take her eyes off the glow of light coming from the blood in the bucket. In just a short trip down to her weapon's graveyard, they've already managed to solve all her problems? It's just not possible. The problems before her had been too much to fix. There's just no way they did.

Did they?

"H-How?"

Jaune laughs, taking out an Aura shard, "What can I say. These little guys really can do a lot. Even keep the blood alive... for a long time. And they're easy to make, but now I'm gonna take you up on that offer to pay for some of them. These things aren't cheap."

Lost, Pyrrha looks down again at the liquid and the bright glow shines back her reflection in perfect view. She can even see the tiny smile threatening to burst forth. Still, it doesn't solve everything but it does bring up another question.

"Where did all this blood come from?"

Nora laughs, jumping forward to grab Pyrrha's hand, "Where else, silly? Us! We know you needed some more blood and we didn't want you hurting yourself again..." Nora can suddenly feel Ren's glare on her neck and now knows why he's been keeping close tabs on her and her new semblance development. "So we gave you some of ours! The guys each gave about a liter and a half I gave you a full liter. You might need a _little_ bit more, but that can wait until tomorrow!" She hands her a bucket full of blood. "Here! This one has all of ours! Including yours!"

Confused, Pyrrha looks down at the second bucket that held less and is met with a tired sigh from her leader, "That one is mine. I gave you more than a liter."

Pyrrha's eyes widen, looking positively shocked at Ren and Jaune, "How are you two standing?!"

This time Ren answers, pulling out an Aura shard from his sleeve, "As Jaune said these things can do a lot."

She can tell they're joking for her expense considering they're wobbling a little and looking a little bit pale. An adult male can lose about two liters of blood, but that's still a lot to lose... just for her. And it hurts. She's touched—so much immensely that it actually hurts. But with joy comes pain. And with pain comes disappointment.

Lowering her head, Pyrrha smiles sadly, "There's still no way to keep it from rotting."

Nora shakes her head, invading Pyrrha's personal bubble, forcing her to look back up and not be all depressed, "Got you covered!" Nora moves over to Jaune, laughing lightly at her Fearless Leader. "Sir Scrabbles's figured it all out! But Jaune can tell you. Tell her! Tell her!"

Reaching for his pockets, Jaune pulls out a pair of uniquely colored ice Dust shards that emit a cool wisp of air. "These are a new type of ice Dust crystal. They're pretty much useless since adding Aura causes them to freeze before you can throw them and they need a constant amount of Aura to stay frozen. And even then, it's only real target is liquids. But you wouldn't freeze the water in your hands."

"Unless you're you!" Nora adds, pointing at the champion while waving the liters of blood in front of Pyrrha's face. "This way you can keep your weapons frozen and cool! Just make sure that the blood's touching the Dust shard before adding Aura when you change your weapon!"

Pyrrha doesn't know what to say, so Jaune walks up to her, foolishly grinning as he grabs one of her wrist to hold up. And within the center of her shaky palm, he presses the ice Dust shard into her hand, lightly closing her fingers around the abnormally cool crystal.

"One for your weapon." He then does the same for her other palm, never allowing his smile to waver, "And one for your shield."

The ice Dust shards feel immensely cool to the touch and Pyrrha just knows they're below the certain degrees of Celsius she needs to keep the blood healthy. "W-Where did you get these?"

"I can't take all the credit," he grins while looking over his shoulder towards Team RWBY's room. "Weiss helped—a lot. She gave them to me after being unable to find a use for them and even I can't use them, but _you_ can. So I'm giving them to you. And don't worry about needing to constantly use your Aura, I got that covered." He pulls out a few overly charged Aura shards, proud and calm, "Now this is something I can take credit for."

Crushing the Aura shards in his hand, Ren and Nora join in as well, taking a few to crush up until they're nothing but the shape of bite size fragment. Then they drop the pieces into the pools of blood, drowning the crimson liquid with a flood of Aura and life alongside the other fragments.

"Just use your semblance to move the Aura shards around to interact with the ice Dust crystal to change it's state when needed." Ren decides to clear her in on the mechanics behind it, "The Aura's not wasted. Not entirely. But it's impossible to truly keep the influx of power constant between the blood and the ice Dust shard forever. Eventually more Aura shards will need to be added to replace the amount that gets drained away. Luckily, for you Pyrrha, that future is very far away and easy to prepare for."

Pyrrha grips the ice Dust shards tightly, feeling that cool sensation burn against her warm fingers. Parts of her chest feel heavy and the beating of her heart rings softly in her ears as she sets her tactical gaze over towards the litters of blood her team—her _friends_ donated so selflessly. And it takes a lot of willpower not to shed some tears.

"Go on!" Nora encourages her with a shooing motion. "Try it out already!"

Catching her breath, Pyrrha focuses her semblance on the liters of blood and finds the iron molecules responding easily to her call. The iron within the blood slowly moves on her command, centering the life giving liquid between the cracks in her grip. Eventually, she gets the blood to completely form around the shard in her hand in the shape of a sword similar to Miló, enough to finally add Aura and feel the effects of the ice Dust crystal take instantaneous effect.

In seconds, the blood freezes completely into the shape she created, remaining cool to the touch and strong as the iron she commanded. The tiny Aura shards trapped inside leave behind a light glow that keeps the blood frozen and iron locked for Pyrrha so she doesn't have to expend any unnecessary amount of Aura to keep it going while supplying an increase of destructive and defensive power. The only thing she needs to do is will the blood to any shape or form her heart so desperately desires anytime she wants. Be it the heat of battle or combat practice. As long as the heat of her Aura takes control and stops the influx of Aura from aiding the ice Dust crystals.

Gripping the other ice shard firmly, Pyrrha looks down at the bowl containing all of her team's blood mixed into one and silently calls the iron towards her outstretched fingers. Just like before, the blood condenses around her hand until her desired shape resembling Akoúo̱ comes forth and the Aura shards she holds fuel the Dust shard so she no longer has to will her Aura to constantly fuel the Dust.

By the time she's done, she standing in the room with bloody versions of her old weapons, minus the gold coloring. Only this time, Pyrrha's new weapon are only limited to her quantity of blood—which she'll build up over more time—and no longer breakable. Not with her semblance acting as a barrier and allowing her to reshape them back together.

Nora moves closer to inspect Pyrrha's new weapons, eyes bright, "What are you going to call them?"

Stuck, Pyrrha looks first at her shield with the mixture of all their blood, coming to a name that resembles her feelings in a way she'll never forget. "Moirázo̱."

Looking then down at her blood sword and all around personal weapon, Pyrrha bites her lip, unable to properly think.

Now this one is a bit more trickier. This sword is made solely off her leader's blood with a small hint of her own with Jaune's Aura shards thrown into the mix. So in a way, her leader personally created this weapon for her. Ironic since he destroyed both Miló and Akoúo̱ in the first place. Practically forcing her to wield his sword and shield until she could find another to call her own.

And now she has.

Finding the irony amusing that she gave him Excalibur and now he's giving her this, Pyrrha settles on a name closely resembling Excalibur to keep the tradition running.

Giggling silently to herself, Pyrrha decides to add her own special touch to the sword's name, removing that pesky ex her leader loves so much, and instead throwing in an N somewhere else for Pyrrha _Nikos_ and to make sure she never forgets the feeling of what caused her past weapon's death in the first place. That very _burning_ feeling she felt. The same one that _burned_ her cheek and _burns_ her soul.

Burn.

Unlike Jaune, she won't add it to the beginning, but towards the end. As to signify the end of a journey she had never known she began.

Holding her new weapon up in the air, it shines alongside the fading sunlight in a glow that's both cold and warm. And just for a second—one meaningful second—Pyrrha finds universal peace in a world consumed by fear.

"Caliburn."

* * *

 **Author Notes:** I hope you're all paying attention to detail from past chapters because no one has pointed out one of the biggest ones yet. I mean that Dust Weiss created is five chapters back and actually had a point to the story just like her teaching Jaune how the properties of Dust work which led to the creation of Aura and Lore shards.


	16. Coin

**Disclaimer:** I own nothing of RWBY.

* * *

 **Coin**

 **By: Imyoshi**

Pride—a stubborn word that can cause numerous problems and destroy friendships without justification, bringing untold pain everywhere it goes.

It's pride that blinds people and pushes them over the edge.

Yet, it's pride that allows a person to find motivation and a purpose to move onward from an impossible journey and boundless odds.

Essentially, pride's neither good nor bad, only misguided.

Holding her new weapon high, Pyrrha takes pride in Caliburn and gently smiles as she lowers the weapon to get a better glance at the frozen blood gripped between her fingers. Moirázo̱ joins in on the fun, and before long, Pyrrha's resting the weapons on her back as she had done with Akoúo̱ and Miló, feeling a weight released from her soul the moment they rest and a new pleasant one embarking on her new journey. The Dust shards Weiss created have become the anchor for the shield and sword to center on, contrasting the blood nicely with the snowy blue.

"Caliburn..." Nora hummed absently. She makes a true and kind effort not to laugh—she really does—but the end result remains the same. "Really? I mean... _really_? That's the name you went with?"

Pyrrha looks over with a confused frown, "What? What's wrong with the name?" Nora covers her mouth, hiding her merciless smile. Pyrrha pouts and looks away, "Well, I like it."

Nora opens her mouth, ready to joke, but Ren slides his palm over her mouth with an impassive smile, "It's a great name." His eyes peek over to Nora, "Right, Nora?"

The girl question looks over to her Fearless Leader for some sort of input, but Jaune's busy gushing over how amazing Pyrrha's new weapons look and proves to be absolutely no help whatsoever. Her eyes move back to Ren who's almost glaring down at her mischievous expression, warning her of some sort of ironic retribution, so she nods before licking Ren's hand that earns her a hasty retreat from Ren's palm.

"Right, Ren!"

Happy, Pyrrha moves forward and hugs the both of them, taking extra care not to put too much weight on Ren of fear of both Nora's wrath and the fact he's running on fumes from the blood loss. They return her hug with one arm, trapped between the champion's fierce hold. Then she lets them go and turns toward her leader and partner, powerless to stop the butterflies from spreading the moment his foolish smile blossoms.

"Thank you..."

It's only until he's hugging her that Pyrrha realizes how tall he is compared to everyone else she's ever run into in her life, or how kind and compassionate this goofball can be if only asked. It's enough to take away the air she breathes and fill her with a different type of burn that's pleasant to be around.

Not much happened the rest of the evening after that. Team JNPR fell to an early sleep with all the blood they were missing holding them back. Even Nora and her ever boundless amounts of energy had crashed minutes after Pyrrha revealed the name of her weapon and shield. Didn't hurt that Sir Scrabbles felt like napping on Ren's head that night, thus leaving Nora one logical choice in sleeping arrangements if she wanted to be close to her precious Sir Scrabbles. Plus, thanks to the boys giving up so much of their blood that left the girls needing to help keep them warm at night when the Aura shards lasting effects finally stopped.

Neither Nora nor Pyrrha had minded in the slightest. More so when the transfer of heat required the guys to give up shirts all together for the night. Blankets could only do so much.

...

When Lie Ren wakes up, he's not drowsy or sluggish. It's a calculated experience with expert profession coming from a clan of lazy ne'er do wells. The action drains nothing from his spirits and he's always well-rested considering the normal air he walks with. Outwardly, Ren prefers not to exert much physical activity, a common trait his family used to have, contradicting Nora's bubbly personality and boundless enthusiasm. And speaking of Nora, she's pretty much the exact opposite; minus initiation because even the thought of waking up early couldn't diminish the excitement she had felt that day. Grimm, fighting, explosions, that's all pretty much Nora's formula for a perfect day.

Back to the matter at hand, Ren's eyes open with a deadly precision and he takes a moment to deeply breathe in the morning air before beginning his day. His pink eyes then slide lazily down towards Sir Scrabbles, who has perched itself on his stomach some point during the night, finding peace from the rhythmic beating of his heart, and then he sets his sights on the hands and feet wrapped securely around his torso and legs with his own arm wrapped protectively over a softer stomach.

Glancing towards his left, Ren finds his jailer of both his arms, snoozing softly onto a spot on his shoulder where her head fits perfectly, with the tiniest bit of drool trailing down her mouth. Her arms are wrapped tightly around his chest in a deadlock, trapping him from even making the slightest of movements. Not to say he's surprise—Nora's always been a cuddler, nothing new there—but Ren can never fathom how she does it. What still amazes Ren till this day is Nora's ability to peacefully sleep, even after all the hardships they've endured together since that faithful day they returned to find their families dead.

Ren's eyes narrow as he recalls that faithful day, remembering and seeing the remains of their family with his semblance over their bodies. Even now, till this very day, he can't believe he caused them both so much pain. No matter how many times the elders of the village kept telling them it was a freak accident, Ren knew that was a lie. His eyes saw it. He could feel it. That power of his was over every one of the corpses and he can never forgive himself for putting Nora through that, and all because he was cursed with these special eyes of his.

The power to control bad luck isn't a semblance to be proud of.

 _Rumble_!

Not even bothering to glare down at his stomach, Ren sighs and forgets about the past for now, figuring he needs to replace the vitamins, nutrients, and iron he lost while donating his blood to Pyrrha. Best get up before his stomach consumes itself or before everyone else wakes up and he's forced to wait in line. Not a scenario the Lie wants to find himself in.

Struggling to move, Ren wiggles in place and tested the bonds Nora has on him before silently giving up and tapping his childhood friend on the forehead. She makes a frown in her sleep and hides deeper into his shoulder, tightening her hold on his body, but even Ren has a cruel streak every now and then and lightly pokes her once more, booping her this time on the nose.

"Sleep..." she yawns and Ren lightly smiles into her stubbornness.

"Time to get up, Nora." She makes some unintelligible response that gets lost on his skin and Ren's stomach rumbles once more. "If you get up now, I'll make you some pancakes," nothing. "With chocolate chip..."

"... And Red Sap?"

No question, "With Red Sap."

Even with the promise of delicious, Ren-cooked food, Nora makes a show with getting up, making the process of untangling herself from Ren a chore, while yawning loudly into his neck. Jaune and Pyrrha are still out cold, having lost maybe even more blood than them, for who knows how much Pyrrha's lost over the week and Jaune's just crazy. Ren personally doesn't think they'll wake up anytime soon, especially considering how early it truly was. Classes didn't start for another few hours and Pyrrha's simply not a morning person, contrary to popular belief.

"And blueberries," Nora suddenly adds, upping the ante. She's already picking up and hugging Sir Scrabbles to her chest, who hates being woken up more than her.

Ren fixes her a soft glare and sits up with him towering over her frame, hiding her in his protective shadow, "Might as well add some banana." Her face begins to heat up with the way his cloak falls down his naked shoulder, "Maybe even some strawberries and... extra _sugar_."

Sir Scrabbles can't imagine why the female holding it has a heartbeat racing so fast it must hurt, or why the normally talkativeness of her seems to have abandon her in her time of need. And all for the _very_ moment the male human said _sugar_. All the Grimm does know is that her holder's mate has one hell of a powerful Aura and presence surrounding him. To the point it can see why the king chose to bestow this human garbs fitting of a sloth.

Such fascinating and oddities humans truly were.

"C'mon, Nora, I'm hungry," Ren says simply and Nora quickly pushes Sir Scrabbles into his chest and makes haste towards the bathroom. The two emotionless beings glance at the door before at each other with equally detached emotions. "I don't understand her sometimes."

Sir Scrabbles yelps in agreement before sinking back into Ren's bed for more sleep. Ren makes no attempt to stop it and leaves the bed to reach for his school uniform with the cloak hanging onto his shoulders due to Lore's gravity. The outfit is completed and he waits patiently for Nora to exit out the bathroom. His eyes do roam over to Jaune and Pyrrha and briefly wonders if he should wake them. Then he brushes that idea off when Nora steps out the bathroom, already dressed in her uniform with the red gone from her face.

"Onwards to the cafeteria!" Nora grinned, heading towards the door.

Ren gives his other two teammates another look before waving his hand off, not really wanting to put in the effort to wake them from the dead.

Too much work.

...

Making Nora's breakfast is like breathing to Ren at this point, and he enjoys the peace and quiet of his fruition coming into play. It's nice cooking and not worrying about anything but the food. Almost like Ren and the pancake mix are one and the same. Silly, he knows, but it brings the stoic man comfort in his life. And he takes pride in watching Nora's face light up each and every time she takes the first bite. So he's a little excited to see Nora take the first bite of his masterpiece as he makes his way towards their table, which, seconds later, he noticed is occupied by two other visitors who appear to zero in on the food he's bringing with a ravenous hunger.

Good thing he always makes enough for an army.

"Oh! That looks good!" Yang teased, licking her lips. Ruby stubbornly tries to not lick her lips, but the sight of her favorite food—strawberries—toppled over the syrup drenched, fluffy mountains makes it hard not to. "Hope you brought enough to share."

It's not a question.

Setting the food down, Ren passed them a fair portion with some going to him and most going towards Nora. His partner doesn't even wait for him to place the plate down, cutting her fork down the soft material of the pancake with hearts in her eyes. Ruby and Yang follow suit, attacking their free breakfast, only not as chaotic. And it's Yang who starts off the conversation.

"So, where's the other two of your little club at?"

Ren wants to reprimand her for talking with her mouth full, but stops himself to cut into his own pancake, "Sleeping. They had a long... training session last night." Ren lies, feeling completely natural.

"Really?" Yang grinned mischievously, setting herself up, but Ren's impassiveness pretty much squashes the joke since Ruby and Nora are too busy indulging in their meals to listen. And two members of her own club is missing as well, "Too bad, they're going to miss out on all this food."

"Yea," Ren answers, tone flat. " _Butter_ luck next time."

Ren wishes he could've taken a picture of Yang chocking on her pancake or Ruby's attempt to save her from passing out from a lack of oxygen reaching her brain. Both from the chocking and laughing the poor girl found herself trapped in. No way did he think the pun was _that_ funny.

"Oh, Oum!" Yang breathes, leaning on a fidgeting Ruby after finally catching her breath. "That was priceless. I didn't know you could make such amazing puns."

"There's a lot you don't know about me." Ren says, standing up to return to the kitchen. "I'm a tough egg to crack."

On his way to the kitchen, Ren can feel Ruby's silver eyes glaring holes into his skull the more Yang laughs and laughs at his clever food puns. Somehow the more he talks, the more Ruby's rivalry for him continues to grow and nurture. By now it's too late to nip that fantasy in the bud. Better to ignore her now and pretend she doesn't want to wipe the floor with him. No point in looking the other way. Not anymore. Not when all it does is create more problems than solve them.

Such a cruel cycle.

"Yang!" Ruby yelled once Ren is out of distance. "Stop it! It's not funny!" This only makes Yang laugh even more, "Yang!"

Yang pushes her palm flat down onto Ruby's head. She squirms under the pressure, "Oh, cheer up, Rubes! Of all the people on Jaune's team, I didn't expect Mr. Tall, Dark, and Gloomy to be the funny one."

"Yup!" Nora smiles into her food. "Ren's pretty funny. You should see Jaune and him talk. They're like brothers!"

Yang doesn't miss the way Ruby puffed out a breath of irritation from the mention of a certain _word_. Poor Ruby, she's been trying so hard and yet all her progress has led nowhere. If anything, she's only pushed her goal farther away with every attempt. Her baby sister just doesn't have the people's skill to interact on a social level without help. And at this rate, Yang feels she just might need to intervene before Ruby blows it completely.

Still, a little teasing never physically hurt anymore, "Speaking of the ninja, what's the deal with the cape? He never wore one before until after you came back from your training trip. Poor Ruby here has been up in arms with how _he's stealing_ her look," Yang mimicked, ignoring Ruby's embarrassed fuming.

Nora pauses momentarily into the bite of her food, taking the slightest of seconds to think of a white lie before gathering her wits and resuming her consumption of Monty's perfect creations. Cheerful or not, she's not dense. Some things simply weren't discussed. Like Ren's awesome and powerful cloak.

Clicking her teeth on the fork, Nora adopts a thoughtful expression before leaning forward on the table, "Well, we got it from some traveling merchant. He was selling it for two-thousand liens, but Ren saved him from a giant sloth Grimm and the old man gave it to him for free!"

Yang believes the white lie, "Whoa! That's something, isn't it Ruby?" Ruby glares adorably at her sister and she can't help but grin jokingly, "You know, at this rate, you're never going to beat him. He's already too strong for you..."

Gasp! "Don't say that! I will beat him! I just need to learn the secret to his power."

"You mean other than being stronger and better than you?" Yang pointed out. "Face it, Rubes! Guy's got you beat. But don't worry, I still love you."

Ruby grumbles beneath her breath and silently lowers herself until only her silvery eyes are popping from underneath the table with her fingers gripping the wooden appliance with envy. Dumb Yang. She doesn't need sisterly love! She needs to learn the secret to Lie Ren's power! And here he comes back.

Ruby huffed with her eyes immediately zero in on the advancing Ren, who has a green liquid slushy in his hand with a rare smile to boot. Ren even has a light kick in his step as he takes a calm seat.

Nora's already on him before he can get a word in, "Bleh! You and those nasty health drinks! How can you drink those?"

Ren sighs and swirls the drink in his hand, "How many times must I tell you, Nora? This is good for you. It helps regulate your body's digestive tract and gives you all the vitamin and nutrients you need to get stronger." Ruby perks up slightly. "You know I get all my strength from this." Ruby perks up intensely and she focuses on the green beverage in Ren's hand. "Hn? Looks like I forgot to get a straw. Excuse me."

The moment Ren leaves the table again with the death drink resting easily on the table, Ruby sprouts out from underneath the tabletop and watches him until he's out of sight and calmly whistles terribly while both Yang and Nora watch her. Then Ruby grabs the drink and disappears in a flurry of rose petals and Nora suddenly loses some of her appetite.

"Uh... this isn't good." Nora panics.

Yang doesn't see the big deal, "What? So Ruby took it, which I do admit is strange, but, eh, it's Ruby. Just get him to make another one. I'll say I threw it away because I was bored."

"That's even worse!" Nora yells, suddenly making sure Ren wasn't nearby before whispering to Yang. "Ren and his nasty fishy food are like Ruby and her cookies. You don't just steal them from him."

"What?" she scoffs. "I see Ren always offering some of his nasty food to you."

"That's different. He was offering because he knows we won't actually take some! And those were his nasty health bars. This is a yucky smoothie. Ren loves his death in a cup more than I like my pancakes!" Yang's eyes widen. "Whatever you do, pretend you don't know anything! You have no idea who took his food. You didn't even realize it was gone."

"But—?"

"Pretend!"

Yang doesn't even get another word as Ren comes back with a bendy straw. His eyes are scanning the table for his missing beverage and he looks to Nora with a sense of longing. Oddly enough, she stuffing her face full of pancakes to the point she can't even speak properly without syrup dripping down her chin.

"Nora? Did you hide my drink?" She answers with messy gibberish and Ren can't make any of it out so he looks to Yang who is immobilized under his scrutinizing glare, far different compared to one he gave Nora. "Where's my drink?"

"I can honestly say, Ren, I had nothing to do with it!"

Ren's glare narrows a bit as he _feels_ both Nora and Yang hiding something. He can almost see this air of deception around them, but it's hard to tell because they must've partially told the truth, hiding behind a feeble wall of makeshift white lies.

"Just makes another one!" Yang offers and Ren shakes his head.

"Can't," he answered. "I made that one special. The amount of vitamins, herbs, and moss used to create it is more than the Beacon kitchen had stocked for a second." He frowns at the dishonesty afoot. "If you two would excuse me, I'm heading to make another, less sufficient substitute."

Even when Lie Ren said it so dispassionately, so detached, Yang still felt a cold sensation wash down upon her the second Ren's pink eyes locked on with hers for the briefest of moments. Almost like a monster just stood before her and she only survived because he wanted her to, not because her will proved strong enough, because it didn't. Not in his presence.

And he's supposed to be the funny one.

...

Classes start like usual, except both Jaune and Pyrrha end up being ten minutes late to Professor Port's class. The Professor smiles and waves them off, warning them not to make it a habit. He's only being kind but fair, knowing Miss Nikos's one of his better students and the Arc boy does make a habit at least listening.

...

Jaune walks into Dust class expecting Weiss to grab him by the hood of his hoodie, but that's not the case. She's sitting at their work station, serious and all, but the light in her eyes doesn't seem to be there. Apparently, she's still sulking over the Ice Dust shards, an overall impossible emotion to miss considering she's absently playing with a random Dust crystal in her hand, not even attempting to glance down at the assignment for today with the usual fire in her eyes.

The sight almost breaks his spirits—almost. Instead, he smiles and sits beside his Dust partner, wondering how surprised she'll be to see Pyrrha Nikos using her oh so _useless_ Dust shards. The thought makes him want to whisk Weiss away and show her the accomplishments all her hard work helped to achieve. He does no such thing for obvious reasons.

"What are you so happy about?"

Jaune blinks, enjoying the way Weiss glared at him, "Nothing. I just have a feeling today's going to be a perfect day!"

"You're enthusiasm is insufferable today." Jaune's smile never leaves. Sigh, "C'mon. Let's get started on today's lesson. Maybe if we're lucky, it's not too time consuming today, our team has plans today and I can't wait for classes to end."

"Really? What kind of plans?"

Weiss gets lost for a second, failing to see Jaune's concern expression before she shrugs her shoulders. "Nothing too special, we're just heading towards Vale later for a team bonding exercise." Jaune doesn't whether or not he should tell Weiss Schnee she's a terrible liar, and then he's given a reason not to. "It's all Blake's idea."

"Oh?" Jaune grinned. Looks like Blake took his advice. "That's nice." Guess he's going to have a quick talk with Blake during lunch? "Bring me back a souvenir. I prefer food."

Weiss flips her hair and glares, "Don't think I've forgiven you yet for that prank you pulled. You're still on very thin ice."

"What? You're still on that?" Weiss crosses her arms. "Aw, give me a break! It wasn't that bad!"

She pokes him on the chest, "Do you have any idea how loud Ruby is at night? She tries to be quiet when she's checking under her bed for _ghost_ ," Weiss says when passionate venom. "It's like there's a Boarbatusk roaming around our room. I don't know how Yang sleeps through it, but I can't."

"You could tell her to be quiet..."

"And look like the resident Ice Queen again?" she questions. "Not on your life! I'm not going to look like the bad guy. Not this time." Weiss pinches her fingers together, "I'm _this_ close to selling you out. _This close_!"

Jaune panicked, "Come on, Weiss. Cut a guy some slack. I already promised you a favor. What more do you want?"

A cruel smile bridges on Weiss's face and Jaune feels a panic for his life. As if she's been waiting for a reason to do this all semester. Then the Snow Angel pulls out a notebook from her bag and smirks into her sinful thought. And the panic in Jaune's soul becomes real. Very, very real!

"Let's cut to the chase," Weiss said, pressing the notebook to his chest. "I need my sleep. And until Ruby's no longer afraid of ghost, you're going to have to take my notes for me so I can get a little extra shuteye during class. And don't think you could weasel your way out with lying about how terrible your writing is. Pyrrha says you have very elegant writing."

Jaune never thought having seven sisters and an overbearing mother forcing writing lessons down his throat could ever bite him back. Looks like he was wrong, and it didn't help Weiss caught him a few times writing in his Aura notebook, too! Of all the blasted luck!

He blames Ren for this. Wasn't he supposed to be the sensible and rational one? Shouldn't the ninja of their team have talked him out of pranking Ruby and Yang? People on Weiss's team! Not support him during his obvious time of delusional freedom and consequence free mindset! With that logic he's as much as victim as Weiss is.

Grabbing the notebook, Jaune glared, "You're going to force me to listen to Professor Port's lessons? Are you out of your mind?"

Weiss remains undeterred, "Consider it payback for ruining my sleep and insurance for keeping Ren and your little prank a secret. Oh! And you still owe me that favor."

Jaune looks between the notebook and Weiss a few times, finding the entire ordeal unfair, "This is cruel beyond reason. You're holding me over a barrel here and squeezing me dry."

"It's been a pleasure doing business with you."

...

For the first time in a real long time, Jaune's looking forward to lunch since Pyrrha and him slept through breakfast and he's starving beyond all reason. Who knew needing to replace all that blood would have such a negative effect on his body? Just another lesson the Arc's learned the hard way. Next to Lore's capabilities and Aura's drawbacks, and while he's pondering over Aura, his Aura heighten senses—mainly Space—pick up Blake's Aura from around the corner just before he reaches the cafeteria.

Stopping before he crashes into her, Jaune wonders over a funny idea. It's ironic, partially funny, and all around amusing. Just for once, he's going to sneak around her and see how she likes it when he hides in the shadows. Now, normally the Arc has no problem being a shoulder to lean on, but not today. After Weiss's deal—blackmail—and his insufferable hunger, helping others just wasn't on his to do list for another hour or two. And he accomplishes this by hiding in a nearby storeroom closet with Blake barely missing him by the skin of his teeth.

She's oddly confused, as if Jaune's person should've tangled with hers the second she turned the corner, but didn't. A funny sight, he thinks as he watches from a crack in the door and has to hold back his laughter as Blake looks over her shoulder and then across the hall for his presence, seemingly lost. In all, it's all harmless fun, but Blake's not happy by the impatient hum she growls.

Her interest seems to spike at the idea Jaune might be somewhere nearby, not actually giving up on finding the boy. And she's off to his room with cause, taking every few moments to see if he's over her shoulder. By the time she's out of his Space's range, Jaune steps out of the closet and heads toward the dining hall without a care in the world.

Honestly, that curiosity's going to be the death of her one day.

...

Stuffing their faces full of iron rich foods and plenty of liquids, Team JNPR enjoyed lunch like no tomorrow. Even Pyrrha threw away her usual mannerism to indulge herself in the heavier foods, apparently needing to catch up on any iron she's lost over the week. Missing breakfast only cinched how truly ravenous she really was. The only one who wasn't actively stuffing his face was Ren, who which had an impassive glare as he took small, calculated bites of his salad.

"What's wrong with Ren?"

Nora looks over to Pyrrha from her stack of pancakes and blinks innocently, "Someone stole his gross health smoothie and he's been moping about it all day."

Jaune doesn't see the problem. "Whoever did it, they did you a _favor_."

The leader of Team JNPR is not too sure if he should be worried over Ren's Aura, after focusing on his Aura to see if Ren's actually that mad about his food being stolen, since Aura can fuel off emotions like anger, even hidden. Based off the way his Aura interacted with that cloak of his, something's definitely going on, at least Jaune assumes. Just like Nora's, his has changed somewhat, but that's carried over from the cloak he's wearing. Obviously, the Lore crossing alongside Ren's Aura is affecting his friend in such a way. Jaune's just not too sure if that's a positive or negative thing. Not yet. Emotions can be effected by Lore's presence.

Sighing into his food, Ren bites into a baby tomato, "It doesn't matter anymore. By now I'm never going to figure out who did it. And whoever took it must've devoured it by now."

"Aw! I can't take it anymore!" Nora whined, unable to take it anymore. "I know who took your drink!"

Ren perks up a bit at Nora's declaration, zeroing in his perception at the guilty looking Valkyrie. By all means, "If you took it, Nora, that's okay. I'm not mad. I figured you did from the start."

If it was Nora, he would be fine. Better than fine, even. Ren would be ecstatic for Nora wanting to broaden her horizons on the joys of healthy living. In the long run, she'll live longer, a plus in his book. And he can't stay mad at the way she squirmed in her chair. Her guilty conscious is more than enough of a payback. So it comes to a haunting surprise when she shakes her head in denial.

"It wasn't me... it was Ruby."

Ren's pretty good at telling when people are lying. It's almost like a special trait of his. So he's surprised to find out Nora's telling the truth. Honest to Oum telling the truth and the idea vexes him so. To the point he almost stands up from the table with a mission set in mind. Determined to learn why Ruby wanted his food in the first place. Couldn't be because she liked healthy foods, girl ate more sugar than Nora. Her stomach and digestive system probably couldn't adapt well to a sudden change in diet. So what else was the reason?

"Ruby... took my food?" Nora nods. "Why?"

"I don't know!" Nora yells and Ren believes her. "I really don't. She just took it without saying anything!"

"Hn..." Calm and impassive, Ren absorbs the information before he gets up from his spot and leaves the table, "Excuse me. I'm going for a walk. I'll meet you all back in combat class."

His team watches him walk away until he exits out the door with a silent click. The rest of Team JNPR's table is quiet and neither Pyrrha nor Jaune can fully understand what the big deal is if Ruby stole some of Ren's food. Beacon has more. Yet, it's Nora who's feeling the worst out of all of them.

"I don't get it." Jaune says, not having taken his eyes off where Ren left. Neither has Pyrrha, "Why is health food so important to Ren? Huh, Nora?"

Its deathly quiet for only about one second, but it's long enough to shatter the atmosphere the moment Nora answers.

"Have you ever gone to bed hungry?" Both Pyrrha and Jaune suddenly turn around and are surprised to find Nora absently playing with the syrup on her pancakes. Her fork idly moves the food around and she's lost any traces of happiness. They don't know how to respond to that, but Nora didn't expect an answer. "Did Ren ever tell you two that we're orphans?"

Pyrrha's eyes widen, never having heard that before. Jaune's not so much. He knows about it, but he never expected for Nora to talk about it. The last thing he expected for Ren's health craze to lead to this conversation. Of all the possibilities, it's simply overwhelming.

What were the odds?

"No."

"Yes." Jaune answered and Pyrrha looks to him in a flurry of disbelief. He shrugs his shoulders, "This is that emotional baggage I was telling you about."

Her memory flashes back to the end of their training journey when Ren smiled after gaining complete control over his semblance. She remembers asking about why he was so happy all of a sudden, and her leader had eloquently put along the lines of emotional baggage. She never got too much after that, having completely forgotten about it till this point.

Nora lowered her head, "So you know, Fearless Leader?"

Jaune frowned; "About what happened to your family?" she timidly nods. "And why Ren thinks of himself as a monster—?!"

"He's _not_ a monster!" Nora yells with fury, alerting a good amount of people around them. Her violent eyes causes them to all look away before she sets her sights back at Jaune. "He's not..."

Jaune throws up his hands in surrender, "I know he's not. I kept telling him that, but he wouldn't listen."

Nora calms down and almost smiles, "Yea, that definitely sounds like Ren. Always calling himself a monster... even though he's the farthest thing from one."

"I don't get it," Pyrrha butts in and Nora looks up to her. "Why does Ren..." she trails.

"His semblance is the power to control bad luck," Jaune answered and he stops her before she can ask. "And no, it's not an awesome semblance. Not after what Ren told me what happened when he lost control."

Pyrrha's almost afraid to ask, "W-What happened?"

"Our families," Nora finished, hiding her face to the world. "Our families happened. One day while Ren and I were in the woods, playing around, chasing some black butterflies, we came back to find our families dead. The people of our village said it was some sort of freak accident, but Ren said he could see and feel his semblance all over them the second they said that." Nora's voice cracked. "That moment, something in Ren didn't change... it _died_ alongside our families."

Pyrrha remains speechless and Jaune absorbs the information a second time, wondering how a guy like Lie Ren could have such rotten luck.

"After that," Nora adds. "Ren did whatever he can to stop his semblance from wreaking havoc. Like... like," she sniffs.

"Like killing his emotions." Jaune finished.

Pyrrha can't stop her short gasp, and Nora hiccups again, "He used to hide his smile." This time Nora looks up with hidden tears of happiness at her leader, "But then you came along and got all Aura-y and gave Ren back his smile. Something I couldn't do no matter how hard I tried." Nora has to wipe the tears from her eyes, "Thank you, Jaune. Thank you giving me back my Ren."

Jaune rubs his hair in embarrassment, "I-It was nothing, Nora. I'll do again in a heartbeat."

Nora's smile melts his soul and then Pyrrha adds her own to the mix and makes Jaune feel like he's a hero of some sorts, at least to Nora. Or not a hero, but a leader—a Fearless Leader who battled against the monster that was Lie Ren's thoughts and helped him escape that caged he locked himself in, even if only for a little while.

"It wasn't nothing, Jaune," Pyrrha countered. "It was something. Something extraordinaire. Something marvelous... something beautiful. I'm proud of you."

Jaune's not too sure what to say, so Nora boops him on the nose, "I'm really glad that you're my leader and friend. You have no idea."

He doesn't. Not really. And it's Pyrrha that saves him from his Fate of constant embarrassment.

"I'm happy that you shared with us your past, Nora, but... I don't see why Ren's so fixated on food or why it brings up such sad memories?"

Nora smiled at Pyrrha's cluelessness and looks down at her generous portion of food. "Well... we had very little money as orphans, sometimes nothing. We had to scrap through the garbage to find food, and anything even remotely edible, Ren would give to me. He wouldn't eat anything unless he absolutely had to. Always making sure I got all the healthiest food he can find. No matter how many times I tried to share, he would always push it back, saying it's a price he must pay for killing our families. But I don't believe that. There's no way he could've done something like that. I know there's no way."

Every time Jaune learns a piece of Nora's and Ren's past, the more he understands his friend. All of it begins to make sense to him. Bits of pieces of his amusing and downright interesting quirks begin to more and more open themselves to him. And it looks like to Pyrrha as well.

Nora pushed her food away, losing her appetite, "Do you know what it's like, watching him kill himself, over me? Over something he had no control over. Do you know what it's like seeing him lie to everyone?" Jaune knows. He's seen Lie Ren at his worst. It's not a pretty sight. At the very foundation of Ren's mind, he sees himself as a monster. "I would get sick sometimes from all the bad and rotten food, so Ren begged for healthy food from strangers. He begged as a kid for scraps. And anything healthy, I would get. After all," she bitterly smiles. " _You can't get hurt eating healthy foods_."

Those words haunt the trio, remembering that's one of the lines Ren said to them at the beginning of the new semester.

"That's why he's so serious about all that nasty junk, and why he's so kind to me with food." Nora adds, smiling at the thought of Ren caring for her. "He doesn't want to see me hungry. Not again. He's such a big, dumb, lovable idiot."

At least now Pyrrha and Jaune get why Ren spoils Nora with pancakes and other sweets or why he seems to never have the power to say no.

But not everything makes sense to the champion, "But what about during the food fight. That was a blatant waste of food, but he didn't seem all that different about it."

"That's because _you_ started the food fight and Yang wasn't using our food for her little game with Jaune. He doesn't mind if people waste their own food—anymore. But we've worked hard to get to Beacon and Ren just hates the idea of someone taking what we worked for our whole lives to finally get."

In other words, Lie Ren sees food as a gift. Not some meager object to be tossed aside and treated like trash.

...

Combat class couldn't come fast enough for Team JNPR who were mostly anxious to see Pyrrha test out the limits of her new weapon, lift up their spirits, and to see if Ren would be present. He is, waiting patiently on the top row with unoccupied seats all around him before class has officially started. Nora makes sure to run up to her idiot and give him a bone-crushing hug. And the other two members of Team JNPR find the moment all the sweeter. Loving the affectionate side a supposed _monster_ has. Especially at the way said monster's eyes soften at the hug.

Jaune takes a seat next to him, "Hey Ren, good walk?"

Ren shrugs easily, "More or less."

The blond can't get another word in as Professor Goodwitch begins the class, "Alright, settle down. It's time to get started. Who would like to volunteer?" Pyrrha lifted up her hand and Goodwitch nodded, "Good. Anybody feel like going up against Miss Nikos?"

Surprisingly, Blake offers her hand, considering she's been rather docile the past week. Looks like Jaune's talk really did make a difference, or perhaps she's fighting for a different reason entirely. Or maybe she needs to let some steam out after not finding him in the hall. Hard to tell.

"Miss Belladonna, very good," Miss Goodwitch smiled. "If you two would please come down and join me so we can get started."

The second Pyrrha got up, Jaune concentrated on his Aura to get a good feel of Pyrrha's and Blake's Space. Pyrrha's felt stronger and Jaune has settled on giving up on where these random bouts of power are coming from, never learning the secret of near-death experiences. Blake's, on the other hand, is almost on par with Pyrrha, but Jaune knows having a stronger Aura doesn't mean a person is relatively destined to win. So it's anyone's fight between these two dangerous beauties.

When Pyrrha reaches Professor Goodwitch, the Professor takes a moment to glance at the blood colored weapons resting on Pyrrha's back that strongly resemble her old weapons. Minus some of the color and a change in some parts of the javelin-sword combo's design and they would be strikingly similar to a tee. Her instincts screamed out blood, obviously a misinterpretation on her part.

"A new weapon, Miss Nikos?" Glynda asked approvingly. Blake joined the professor at eyeing the new gear. "Why do I have a feeling this is connected with your little team bonding weapon exercise?" Pyrrha merely smiles and Glynda smirks. "Very well, get into positions." They reach for their weapons, "And... begin!"

Pyrrha gripped the Ice Dust shards between her fingers, recalling what both Jaune and Ren explained about the properties on how the Ice Dust works. By forcefully breaking the bond between the Dust shard and the blood, she can instantaneously cut off the supply of Aura reaching the Dust, thus breaking the solid state of the blood and reverting it into a liquid fluid state whenever she so pleased.

A tricky process she's had no time practicing. Nonetheless, Pyrrha prepares to make full use of the blood's fluid features and dashes forward towards Blake with Moirázo̱ raised high and Caliburn posed to strike her opponent's shoulder. The bookworm raises her own weapon to block Pyrrha's sword, narrowly intercepting the champion's sword that seems to glow under the weight. Then Blake raises a foot and connects it with Pyrrha's stomach and kicks her roughly back before firing a few rounds at Pyrrha, who raises her shield to stop the incoming projectiles.

Meanwhile, Jaune watches from above the stands and pays close attention to Pyrrha's weapons. Normally—he critically assumes—blood would break under such pressure, having no real counter to a great physical force acting upon a weak bound of iron. Luckily for his partner, that's not the case, not with those Aura shards mixed into the life-force.

Jaune Arc knows better than anybody that Aura can do a great deal. If Aura can be used as an armor to prevent a Grimm from ripping someone's skin to shreds, then the idea of Aura hardening blood and enhancing the iron molecules into a durable steel defense isn't too farfetched. Alone with the high mass of Aura shards and a powerful, beautifully crafted Ice Dust shard that feeds off an almost limitless supply of Aura, and Pyrrha's got herself one hell of a weapon. Above all else, Pyrrha's already a dangerous force to be reckoned with and Blake's stuck fighting that unstoppable force.

Ducking underneath a kick aimed for her head, Blake created a shadow clone to block Pyrrha's slash as she somersaulted back to create some distance. Yet, Pyrrha was having none of that, and cut right through the shadow clone and closed the distance between them in a single lunge, forcing the quiet girl to sidestep Pyrrha's swipe and counter with her own slash towards Pyrrha's chest.

Her shield comes to her aid and Blake's eyes widening at the way it suddenly turns all liquefied the moment Gambol Shroud clashes with the iron. Then, to everyone's but Team JNPR's amazement, the blood shots outward like a layer of spikes and Blake only barely manages to avoid getting a deep cut on her body, although, she can't say the same for her forearm, which suffers a minor cut across.

The cut may not look like much, may not _seem_ like much, but Blake's wincing terribly from the intense burn that's sprouted from nothing. At first, the cut had strangely been cold for all but two seconds, then the coldness intensified to the point it burned. And she can't even lick her wounds as Pyrrha's sword comes crashing down on her form. Barely, Blake intercepts the attack from above, but is unaware or Pyrrha turning Moirázo̱ into a second Caliburn until Pyrrha cuts her across the midriff and the burn returns, twice as hot as before.

Creating a shadow clone to distance herself away, Blake creates a few more to act as a shield while she clutched her stomach and wonder where and why the burn wasn't disappearing after her Aura already healed the wounds and stopped Pyrrha from cutting into her skin the second time. While at the same time, Pyrrha breaks the blood off the Ice Dust shard and forces the blood to retain it's original, destined shape once more—Moirázo̱. She even takes the time to study Blake's face and she can recall that same action from the time Jaune cut her with Excalibur.

Not a pleasant memory or experience.

Looking down at her weapons, Pyrrha carefully touched the frozen blood and is astound to find the cold so devilishly hot. Not hot-hot, like fire. But ice so cold that it burns from merely touching it kind of hot. As if the Aura shards had enhanced not only the strength of the blood's life-force, but also acted as an agent to increase the freezing capabilities of the Ice Dust shards to the point the freeze burned anyone or anything it came in contact with. And apparently, the only freedom from this burn is the one holding the Ice Dust shards, which means they have a set property of chillness that not even Aura can break down and change freely. Meaning also her own Aura is acting out as a barrier to keep the natural coldness of the Dust shards from numbing her fingers, thanks to Aura's natural burning properties.

Not to say Aura can protect someone from the intense freeze coming from the blood itself. That's a chemical reaction, not a physical one. Proving Caliburn's not a sword made of blood, but one of extreme cold as well.

How terribly fascinating!

No wonder Jaune loves learning. It's so riveting!

Admiring the distance and fortress Blake's built for herself, Pyrrha glared a little and aimed Caliburn back with a pose to throw a javelin. She concentrates and breaks the blood apart from the Ice Dust shard and carefully constructs the sword into a lance resembling her old one. The process takes too long for her liking and Pyrrha promises herself to get some later practice in.

Hehe, she sounds like her crazy leader.

Reshaping the point to be just right, Pyrrha has to admit, she likes having a weapon that is neither entirely fluid nor solid. When it comes to Weiss's Dust, in a practical sense, it is useless. Ice that freezes on contact with Aura and then unfreezes when the Aura supply is cut is an inconvenience; however, ice itself is troublesome all on its own when dealing with a long lasting solid state. To be able to control the state between solid and liquid is a feat only she can do. Meaning, it's a very awkward weapon for anyone but Pyrrha Nikos.

Taking a quick peek up at her lance, Pyrrha has to bite her tongue back at the oddity of it. No longer does the bloody weapon resemble Caliburn, and she may not be so name-craze when it came to naming her weapons like a certain someone she fights with, but even the champion can't take pride in the off sounding name Caliburn presented for her lance. Lines needed to be drawn somewhere in the proverbial sand.

Lost at the idea, Pyrrha takes a step back and then throws the lance with all her might, using her semblance to offer up a boost to not only her weapon, but the blood flowing through her muscles. And as she lets go of her weapon, Pyrrha can't help but notice how Weiss's Dust shard illuminates the spear in a nice, soft, white glow that contrasted nicely with the bloody color, really making the color and blood pop out more for everyone to see. And as the lance crashes with Blake's Gambol Shroud, Pyrrha's eyes get captivated by the few droplets of blood that break off from the collision, resembling somewhere along the lines of a Bleeding Lance.

Pushing back the lance, Blake has to use a good amount of force to throw the spear out of its _destined_ trajectory, failing to avoid getting nicked on the side. Her Aura protects her skin from being cut, but the burn is an impossible side effect that she just can't avoid, just like Pyrrha running up right to her with her shield transforming into another sword!

Ignoring the burn, Blake switches spots with one of her shadow clones and dodges Pyrrha's attack. But the distraction required her to abandon the only perk she had so far, having Pyrrha's weapons by her side. And the champion knows this, easily pulling the bleeding lance from the wall where all of a sudden the strange liquid from the floor begins to build back towards the spear from Pyrrha controlling it. Prodigy or not, however, she still needs practice. And it's only thanks to Blake's initial surprise and lack of response was Pyrrha able to properly land a few blows with her liquid to solid state weapon tactic.

Oh well, that's what training's for.

"Where did you get a weapon like that?" Blake asked during mid-fight. "You know Ruby's going to ask."

Pyrrha prompts to answer in a way that makes her leader proud, "Wouldn't you like to know."

Blake would. Like everyone else in the room, but she would also like to avoid even coming in contact with such a weapon. So without any other sensible options, she sheaths her blade, saving her Aura for today's trip to Vale.

"I forfeit."

Professor Goodwitch comes out of her stupor and pushes her glasses up with nothing short of impressed. "Very well, this match belongs to Pyrrha Nikos. And I must say Miss Nikos, that's a very unique weapon you have there."

Pyrrha bites her lip, accepting the praise with high regard. She's normally not so docile, usually offering a word or two of thanks, but part of her wants to blurt out how much more amazing Jaune's weapons are compared to hers, so she's forced to give Professor Goodwitch a kind nod.

"Now," Glynda begins, looking up to the stands. "I hope you all learned something from that. The element of surprise can really change the flow of a battle." She looks pointedly at Blake who is guilty for thinking Pyrrha was out of surprises. "Always be on your guard. Now, I know that's a tough act to follow, but we must continue. Any volunteers?" A hand is raised and Jaune recognizes it belongs to that silver-haired guy he ran into a few days back. "Mercury, is it? Very well, let's find you an opponent."

"Actually," the guy says, pointing down at Pyrrha. "I want to fight her."

Jaune narrows his eyes alongside Professor Goodwitch. Yet it's the professor who voices her opinion, "I'm afraid Miss Nikos has just finished a match. I recommend you choose a different opponent."

"No! It's fine!" Pyrrha argues, feeling her pride on the line. She looks up Mercury and smiled, "I'll be happy to oblige."

Glynda Goodwitch has to fight back a sigh, also resisting the urge to rub the bridge between her eyes. Kids these days and their invincible teenage attitude, thinking they could keep on going and going without foreseeable consequences. A body needs to rest, time to recuperate, and time to unwind from a battle. They weren't fighting a war; Miss Nikos has no reason to push herself.

Nonetheless, Glynda can't stop Miss Nikos now. The only one who can truly reach her at this point is her—?!

"No."

All eyes suddenly zero in on the voice that opposed to the fight, surprising almost everyone in the room, and Jaune meets their surprise with a steel resolve. His glare cuts through the room as he makes his way down towards Pyrrha, blocking everyone else out in the room, refusing to allow Pyrrha to fight another opponent. She knows he can see her Aura levels and he knows she knows this, pretty much cutting out that argument before he even reached the last step down the stairway. It's his impeccable logic that seals the deal.

"You already fought Pyrrha, don't push yourself." She readies up to argue but he lifted up his hand. " _Nope_. _Nope_. Remember how you got when you let that stubborn pride get in the way... remember how _I_ got?" There had been lots of blood and arguing. "I'm here telling you as your friend and _leader_ to step down. You're done fighting."

Mercury didn't like this man. He's ruining everything, "Then who am I supposed to fight?"

Jaune barely fixed the man a glare, gesturing for Pyrrha to leave, "Somebody's who hasn't already fought."

If Jaune had looked to his side, or if anyone bothered adverting their sights away from the confrontation for even a fraction of a second, in the corner they would've saw Professor Goodwitch grinning the proudest smile in all the class's history.

"Well, Mr. Arc, seeing as you are taking control of the situation," Glynda says a little too energetically. "Who do you suppose Mercury should fight?"

Jaune thinks it over for a minute, allowing his gaze to land on Nora, "I do know someone who's been itching for a good fight. What do you say, Nora?"

The bomber jumps out of her seat, "Awesome!" Time to finally push her semblance to the limit!

Scowling, Mercury makes a weak argument at having his opponent taken away, Jaune answers with a reality he's learned from Ren, "Life's unfair. Get over it."

Jaune Arc didn't know this, but he's changed his image somewhat in the face of all his peers. Didn't matter to him what they saw him as. All that mattered was his partner not pushing herself again. Not after all that blood she's lost. He can see it and she can feel it, her Aura's working overtime to supply the energy she needs to fight. She hasn't fully recovered all her blood. None of them has.

He walks Pyrrha upstairs as Nora runs down to fight her opponent. The entire time Mercury glares at him, but the Arc's undeterred. He's faced a pack of Leos, killed their king with his hand lodged deep within its throat while stranded in the middle of a Grimm infested forest. He doesn't have time to deal with fighters who want to take the easy way out and fight an opponent who's already fought a battle. _His_ Arc pride wouldn't allow it.

Almost reaching Ren, Pyrrha and Jaune are bombarded with the members of Team RWBY, who all have faces of indifferent curiosity.

"What was that, Pyrrha?" Yang asked and so did the others. The poor girl doesn't know whose question to answer first. Not even Jaune attempts to help her out of this bind, perfectly fine to watching her solve her own problems.

Darn him. Now he doesn't want to intervene?

"How does your weapon work?" Ruby demanded adorably and Pyrrha hums at the easier question. "And where can I get one? It's so cool!"

"First of all, its one-of-a-kind," Pyrrha answered, smiling sadly at the sadden reaper. "And secondly, you know how my semblance works?" Eager nods, "Well... let's just say there's some stuff in the material that allows me to freely control the shape of my weapons."

"Does that mean it's a liquid?" Weiss pondered, interested in such a unique weapon. "I'm assuming for you to be able to freely control the shape, having it be a solid would be difficult to mold and shape the way you want."

"Couldn't be," Blake intervened; glad the burning sensation has subsided. "My weapon would've cut right through a liquid. It was definitely solid when we fought... at least until Pyrrha decided she wanted something else."

"Actually," the girl in question answered. "It's both a solid and a liquid. I freeze the liquid when I want to maintain the new shape I'm aiming for and melt it when I want to change."

Weiss seemed lost, "But how? How is that possible?"

Pyrrha smiled appreciatively, gesturing to both Weiss and Jaune, "Well... I have you to thank for that, Weiss. If it wasn't for these, I would've never achieved my goal."

"Me?"

Holding up her weapons, Pyrrha opened up her palms for Weiss to see her Dust shards resting easy on Pyrrha's hands. They glowed that snowy white color, keeping the weapons frozen and very, very solid, causing the heiress's eyes to widen the moment her eyes land on those... useless Dust shards. The very same she gave up on, even after all the love and care she put into them.

"You have no idea how much these helped me out," Pyrrha laughed. "I wouldn't have been able to get this far without your help. Thank you, Weiss."

The heiress is speechless, truly at a loss for words. Her mouth tries to form some words, any words, yet, nothing comes out. "I... I..."

It's Jaune who answers for her, "See, they're not useless." He grins at her vulnerable emotions. "They weren't a waste of time. What do those dumb Dust scientists know? They were probably just jealous of your genius."

Weiss can't free her tied tongue fast enough before Professor Goodwitch's voice booms over them, "The match is about to begin. Take your seats."

Forced to take their seats, Weiss lingers her gaze over the two a moment longer before following her team to their seats with a lost expression. Down below Nora and Mercury are sizing each other with the latter glaring angrily for losing his target. Now he's stuck fighting some random girl who uses dual pistols if he last remembers. No challenge at all. Such a waste of his time, time that could be better spend fighting Pyrrha Nikos and learning a thing or two.

Oh well, the least he could do is beat the life out of this Nora girl. The plan's only been delayed slightly. Nothing too game changing.

"So I'm assuming the team bonding exercise is over?" Professor Glynda question, eyeing the familiar weapon attached to Nora's hip.

"Yup-yup!" Nora cheers, pulling out Magnhild and retracting the hammer from grenade launcher form to hammer form. "Ah... I forgot how great this feels."

Mercury's muddled, not remembering this crazy girl ever using a hammer before. He can't even recall anyone using a hammer nor he does he enjoy the way she's looking at him. Like some sort piece of meat on display and she's the buyer.

"I am interested to see how you fare," their professor comments before signaling the match. "Begin!"

Mercury also didn't expect this Nora girl to be able to move as fast as she is with that hammer of hers, because he's instantly on the defensive the second the fight begins. Dodging each attack of an overly fast swing of a hammer from a girl who doesn't even look like she can hold the damn thing, but here she is, pushing him back at the start of the match with air of her swings brushing past his hair in a dangerous way.

Narrowing his eyes, Mercury sidesteps an arc swing, scarcely dodging a blow aimed for his upper body and follows up with a roundhouse kicked aimed directly for Nora's head. It lands cleanly on her cheek, pushing the girl back half a step before she brushes past his kick and delivers a swing of her hammer to his side torso.

The velocity and momentum of her swing propels the exchange student through the air, forcing the young man to twist in the air seconds later and narrowly dodge her incoming shadow from above. He lands on his hands and uses his still active kinetic energy to propel himself forward with a push of his arms to meet her still defenseless state.

He's able to land a solid kick on her stomach and quickly follows up with another, although he's stopped when Nora grabs his ankles during one of the kicks and delivers a haymaker—which had way more strength than he thought she could dish out—exposing him in a near defenseless form for her to take advantage. And she does with a quick swing of her hammer, landing yet another blow on his side, making it highly impossible to ignore the intense pain building on his body.

She's on the same boat, he knows this, but it doesn't seem to make much of a difference. Her swings just keep getting faster and her strength easily follows along. Doesn't matter how much effort he puts into each and every one of his kicks, they aren't leaving much of a lasting effect.

Spotting her advancing frame, Mercury formed a fist, "Damn it. I can't believe this girl's pushing me back."

He would forfeit, but that would be admitting he can't take her on, even if it's a tactical retreat, and Mercury doesn't have that option after challenging Pyrrha Nikos to a fight. And everyone knows this, especially that Jaune Arc guy who's watching them fight with a sick smile.

He'll show that Arc kid why messing around with him isn't a joke by beating down his teammate. And here she comes, running forward with oh so many openings to exploit. Almost like she wants to get hit? But that's just crazy. Clearly she's insane.

Sliding across the floor, Mercury dodges an attempted swing from Nora's hammer, cartwheel kicking Nora across the face. She has to take a step back in order not to stumble and Mercury almost smirks as her vision is obscured a different direction but stops himself when Nora begins to laugh excitedly.

"Oh..." Nora turns her head, grinning deliciously as sparks ignite randomly in her eyes. The grip on her hammer tightens and her muscles bound together in unadulterated excitement. "Can I break your legs?"

He slides his foot back, clicking his teeth together, "This girl's nuts. How can she—?!"

Mercury's cut off mid-rant by Nora bringing her hammer down from a sudden leap she just did. He easily avoids it, but the crater left behind is enough for him to build up his distance. And he continues to do so while firing bullet rounds at his target which she deflects them without a care.

"Hey!" she yells, waving her hammer around. "What are doing over there? The fight's right here!"

"I think I'll keep my distance."

Nora blinks innocently at Mercury for a split second, registering what he just said. She then smiles at the silver-haired teen with a mock salute. "Okey dokey!"

He barely has time to dodge the hailstorm of grenades raining down upon him.

 _Boom_!

A few minutes later and Nora's sitting happily next to her team after her win with Mercury sitting far away from them with scorch marks littering his body. Parts of his shirt is burned and torn and a small sizzle of smoke escapes from a few locks of his hair. In all, he lost due to a terrible match-up. First, all the information he had on students was misplaced completely, and secondly, Nora Valkyrie had both an array of close-range and long-range tricks to use to her disposal. All of which had greater stopping power than his.

"And he wanted to fight Pyrrha?" Nora joked lightly at his expense which actually earned a laugh from both Jaune and Pyrrha.

Sulking, Mercury crossed his arms and settled more into his seat. Like he thought, there's always next time. The match-up had been bad from the start. Only problem, doesn't really make him feel any better. In the end he lost the fight. Sure, he had planned to forfeit in the beginning, but that was meant for fighting Pyrrha Nikos. Not Nora Valkyrie.

Damn her leader.

Grinning in her seat, Nora swung her legs playfully as she hugged her weapon tightly, "I missed you. Did Ren treat nicely? I know he did. Look at how much he polished you! You're so shiny!" And while she's talking about Ren, Nora waves down at the arena. "Good luck, Ren!"

Hearing her cheer, Ren awarded Nora with a simple glance that made her insides warm before he waited patiently for his obvious opponent. Professor Goodwitch doesn't even have to ask for a volunteer as a flutter of rose petals descends across from the stoic ninja. And for the first time ever, Ren accepted her arrival with a small fervor.

The one-sided rivalry between Ren and Ruby is a running joke that's been going on between everyone in their class and even Professor Goodwitch. Except, no one's laughing. Unlike their previous bouts, there's some hint of an air of annoyance around Lie Ren that's never been there before. His ordinary, passive glare seems to have been replaced with a real one, and that cloak surrounding practically his entire body brings a certain chill to everyone's spines.

Up at the stands, Jaune Arc switched to Lore to observe Ren's Aura, unable to study the Outer Space in normal Aura settings. Not while he's wearing that cloak of his. Compared to him, the Lore encasing Ren's body seems more adapt that when Jaune's actively using his Lore, ignoring all those techniques he's discovered and catalog away. His Aura—while not able to directly act with the Lore—is unmistakably influenced by the constant Lore trapping it inside, having lowered the color of his Aura a small margin and tightening his control to a large degree with a trade-off only benefiting Ren and no one else.

At least, that's as far as Jaune Arc personally knows. The article of clothing is still a great mystery to him. And it's not that he doesn't trust it _exactly_ , but he's on edge over the fact that a Grimm created it. More yet, he's on edge that Ren can trust the Grimm so easily or the power they give. None of which makes too much sense to him, but a lot of this world is shrouded in mystery. So much that he's forced to look the other way for the sake of a person he can honestly call a brother.

After all, this is the first time Team JNPR's watching Ren use his semblance and cloak in a real fight. There's no way Jaune's not interested in what the properties of Lore can do in a real fight. Yet, oddly enough, Ren's not focusing on his Aura just yet. Instead, he's merely sizing Ruby up with a glare only Team JNPR could distinguish as contemplative. Some part of the Arc's curious if the misplaced emotions are caused by the cloak, knowing Lore's property of effecting emotions from experiencing them firsthand.

Down at the arena, Ren wondered what Ruby had behind her back before getting back onto the matter at hand, "Before we start, I have just one question to ask you, Ruby. I know it was you who stole from me. Why? What did you hope to achieve?"

Caught red-handed, Ruby glowered and revealed the contents hidden behind her back. His organic, health packed smoothie residing between her fingers and Ren's glare narrowed slightly at the stolen item rightfully his. Depending on her answer, this can go two ways. Life-changing and painful with a new lesson learned or nothing at all with simple forgiveness.

The Lore cloak greedily yearns for painful.

"To finally beat you!" Ruby declares with absolute conviction. Enough for Ren to allow her to continue, "I'll use your own power to beat you."

None of that makes sense to Ren, who's now convinced Ruby lived in some sort of fantasy world where the reality of the world has yet to merge. Does she honestly think drinking that would give her the strength to win? Who gave her such a ridiculous idea? It's almost enough to make Ren laugh and excuse her blatant reason for taking what wasn't hers.

Almost.

Taking a quick sip of the health smoothie, Ruby immediately grimaces from the awful tastes and carelessly throws the food on the floor with no regard of anyone else's feeling. And Ren's choice has been made the minute she disregarded the waste gift. Lessons needed to be taught. Naivety needed to be erased. Hardships had to be learned.

"Arg!" she cried, wiping her tongue free from the dreadful flavor. "How can you eat that? It's gross!"

Ren doesn't hear her words, fixated on the wasted food. Seeing the carelessly spilled and tossed aside drink brings back some terrible memories from his and Nora's childhood. Like going to sleep hungry or begging for scraps in the rain. All were memories he wished to never recall again, all of them dreadfully rotten to have, and none with any happy moments hidden in between. Perhaps some had decent days when food was shareable, but never were they happy days. Survivable, if anything, and _even_ that's a stretch on the idealistic situation Nora and him lived through which was called their childhood.

Ruby doesn't know what feeling sorrow is. She doesn't know what true sadness or hate feels like. Always taking what she has for granted. Living in that fantasy world where everything's perfect and no true consequences exist. Bound by a reality of her own making.

"As your rival," she frowns, not liking the way the portion of the drink she did swallow affect her stomach. "I'm going to finally beat you!"

Pulled away from the buried memories, Ren glared impassively at Ruby, "Your rival? Hn?" he's tired of these games. Tired of a child's imagination haunting his every move. "I think it's time I showed you how truly misguided your perception on reality really is, Ruby. Let me show you what it is to feel suffering."

The Lore cloak's negative properties have won.

Pulling out Crescent Rose, Ruby prepared herself while Ren could plainly see the aftereffects of his concoction working its healing magic on her. And, for the first time, he can honestly say health foods can hurt, especially if mixed with someone whose diet consisted of nothing but sugary and mediocre heavy foods at best. Her body simply cannot accept the sudden intake of a new diet, even for a short period of time. Perhaps if she had started off small, it wouldn't have been a problem, but Ruby ingested a good portion of greens and even moss. Levels only a pro can consume.

It might only be a small minute effect, but in a fight, a minute's a very, _very_ long time. Even a second can change the course of history. And all Lie Ren needs is a second to control the battlefield.

Running forward, Ruby prepared to strike, "Ren, I hope you're ready to lose."

Closing the distance between them, Jaune's eyes widen from the sudden influx of Outer Space crashing down upon him the last second before Ruby takes her swing at Ren, hoping to get first blood. Imagine her surprise when she finds Ren calmly gripping Crescent Rose's snath moments before the blade can make contact with his shoulder, never having moved a muscle from where he stood. And all together, his pink eyes glare at Ruby's silvery ones in a battle of wills.

"I... I don't believe it," Yang thought. "He brushed off Ruby's attack like it was nothing."

Gripping Crescent Rose firmly, Ren calmly added a considerate amount of his semblance into the scythe that slowly traveled down from the weapon to Ruby's hands then body, instantly changing the odds to his favor. Lore's properties affect the semblance in both a negative and positive way and Ruby tries hard to break his iron grip, but to no avail with Ren calmly pulling the weapon towards himself while Ruby struggled to fight back.

"You are still too weak. You're not even worth fighting, Ruby."

That angers the reaper and she tries desperately to pull Crescent Rose free from his grip, but Ren's added Aura boost plus the two week training session, Lore gravitational effects, two week carrying around Nora's hammer, and studying the secrets of Aura manipulation from Jaune Arc's Aura notebook really has done his body wonders. Compared to Ruby wasting all of her time training with only one weapon and blowing off her break to mess around and have fun, a clear difference of wills are battling it out. And Ren demonstrates this by idly kicking Ruby on the stomach where his bad luck semblance causes her to let go of Crescent Rose.

Watching her slide across the arena, Ren slowly paid her no mind and observed her weapon. Having seen her use it so many times, he finds the button to revert it back into a carrying case and calmly hides it within his cloak as she helps herself up. By the time she realizes she's weaponless, Ren has already added more bad luck to the machinery, effectively disabling it even if she did manage to steal it back.

An eye for an eye. She stole from him and now he returns the favor. Karma is a cruel mistress. Almost as bad as Lady Luck herself.

Ruby makes an attempt to retrieve her weapon with her semblance giving her a boost of speed; it's all for naught the minute she gets within Ren's personal space, succumbing to the cloak's gravitational effects and his improved semblance. The Lore lessens the gravity around Ren, greatly lessening the force behind the body of weight, acceleration, and velocity being thrown at him. It's all instinct. The cloak and his Aura do it by themselves without him noticing. But when it comes to fighting, that's pretty much all it is.

Pure instinct.

She's slightly slower, just enough for Ren to read her movements and stop all her advancements each time. And with each block, he pushes her buttons with a cold slap of truth.

"Foolish Ruby... you can't defeat me, your will's not strong enough... you're not strong enough."

Every word cuts into her as she makes an attempt at throwing a few misguided punches at him. Again, it proves futile as Ren catches her fist and kicks her across the arena again, fueled off not only by his anger but Lore's negative properties as well.

To everyone in the class, it's a very one-sided fight. Without her weapon, Ruby can't do much. She's far too use to needing one specific one. Meanwhile, Ren and all of Team JNPR have all trained with each other's' weapons and learned from their strength and weaknesses. The sight is too much to bear for her older sister.

"Ruby, just give up!" Yang yells. "Professor—?!"

"No, Yang! Don't butt in! Mind your own beeswax!" Ruby attempts to get up, hoping the pain in her stomach would go away. Her will is unwavering but her spirit is breaking, "I told you before; I need to get stronger to beat him. It's now or never. This fight is mine."

Ruby makes an attempt to prove herself and runs up at Ren with a twirl of her semblance to act as a unstoppable force. She's an incoming tornado and Ren uses his newfound semblance control on his legs and connects a roundhouse kick to Ruby's chest, stopping the tornado midway. Ruby crashes onto the floor from the sudden impact of momentum and tries to get up still. All the while, Glynda's having second thoughts after seriously reevaluating a lot of things, first and foremost, Ozpin's decision on a private matter of theirs and secondly who she personally believed to be a better choice.

Thinking she suffered enough, Ren turned around to walk away and give Ruby the win for a forfeit—so they can finally end this pointless rivalry and walk their separate paths—but is not surprised at all when she gets up still with a steel determination. Seems all those words of his really changed something in her, or created something else entirely.

"Not finished," she weakly says.

Ren narrows his eyes, thinking to himself, "She can't even manage to land a blow."

Even before, Ren normally beat Ruby without too much effort, but there had been effort before, but now she's barely standing. Her opponents normally consist of slow and sluggish fighters who Ren can't honestly see how they made it to Beacon; Lie Ren is anything but that. Sure, he's a lazy guy, but he's nowhere near slow in the accounts of speed or intelligence. Not like common criminals or thugs. This is the guy who is the pride of the Lie clan. Who beat the Sloth King and walked away with a new power. Of course she doesn't know that, but those accomplishments still stand.

Resolved to fight, Ruby finally gets up with renewed vigor, "This fight... is mine."

Sighing to himself, Ren figured he should be fair and go all out for her benefit, "So be it."

Walking up towards her, he stands directly in front of her with the collar of his cloak hiding the emotionless frown from her sights.

Even still, Ruby takes the opening and throws a fist forward. "And now I got you!"

 _Smash_!

To only be met with a knee to the stomach and the air knocked out of her lungs. Her face is scrunched up in disbelief from the bluntness of his attack.

"How?" Her neck is met with an elbow before Ren connects a knee to her chin, followed by a fist to the gut that leaves her falling to the ground. "All this time and nothing has changed. I don't get it?"

Jaune sighs as he watches Ren beat Ruby, "Ren doesn't show her any mercy."

Crashing on the floor, Ruby remains motionless, "What have I've been doing all this time? How come I still can't win?"

Knowing the fight's over, Ren allows the image of a hungry, child-aged Nora to fuel his reasoning. All the bad emotions he has are being fueled by the Lore and Ren plans to make sure Ruby gets the lesson across so he will never have to repeat it again. Never have to teach her what the meaning of sacrifice is or why she shouldn't take her happy life for granted.

Reaching down, Ren lifted her by the collar of her shirt, easily holding the defeated girl in a vice grip. Even if it's just Ren holding her up, Ruby Rose swears a Grimm has her in its hold. A natural fear overcomes her the closer she gets to him. A fear a certain ghost incident reignites in her soul.

Bringing her close, Ruby glared dangerously in his emotionless eyes, "You're still too weak. You don't have enough strength. And you know something... you never will."

Shattering part of her reality, Ren lets Ruby go and drops her weapon beside her. He ignores the way Yang runs up to check up on her the second Professor Goodwitch calls the match but not the way her eyes turned a shade of red as she passes him by. None of which affects him as the bell rings and class is dismissed. By the time Team JNPR reaches the hall, Jaune runs up to him with an innocent stare.

"A little harsh back there, don't ya think."

Ren looks to the person standing beside him, wondering how such an innocent person could have so much strength. His leader probably doesn't even realize that his strength pretty much rivals all of theirs, meaning he can perfectly take any of them on if he wanted. It's an interesting thought Ren bounces around time and time again, wondering how truly powerful his leader has gotten since that faithful day Pyrrha and Jaune fought.

But back to the moment now, Ren focuses on the sole difference between Jaune and Ruby.

His leader has the power to act innocent. She does not.

Willingly the collar to open up, Ren shrugged into the walk to dinner, "It's better I get her to open her eyes to what the real world is like before it's too late. With this, she might try to prove me wrong and actually take training seriously."

Strangely enough, Jaune doesn't say anything else, or conceivably, Lie Ren doesn't give his leader enough credit. For Jaune accepts the answer with a determined vision and shrugs off Ren's answer without too much care. Neither Pyrrha nor Nora adds in their own afterthoughts, knowing themselves how cruel the world can truly be from personal experiences.

Life's not always a story with a happy ending.

...

Taking a seat after watching the last of her students leave her class, Glynda Goodwitch takes a long pause to reflect on the day's events, trudging over each and every moment with careful detail. A seed of doubt digs itself in an area she never thought possible. And the man she's thinking of walks into her class with flawless timing.

"I think you chose the wrong team." Glynda puts it bluntly when Ozpin gets within speaking distance, avoiding the need for pleasantries.

"For what?" he asked with a simple sip of his coffee. "The Vytal Tournament? Do not fret about such concerns—?!"

"I'm not talking about the Vytal Tournament." She looks off to the side with a longing stare. "I'm talking about the _other_ thing."

Ozpin actually takes a moment to set down his coffee on her desk, fixing Glynda a serious stare. The professor in question regards over her words, nailing away at her thoughts one-by-one until she can seriously believe her boss and friend made a mistake.

"And what makes you say that, Glynda?"

Serious and honest to Monty, it's her gut. When it comes down to it, Glynda sees a better team to take the mantle of being the _one_. Maybe she's being a little bias from only watching one side of a team cooperating during combat class, but then maybe Ozpin's being a little bias when it comes to a certain drunken old crow and his niece. Compared to the two, neither of them was perfect. And taking into account of the recent developments she's seeing, Glynda's gut keeps urging and urging her to believe.

She wants to believe in Team JNPR and not just because one person. The entire team as a whole has such a great dynamic compared to Team RWBY. One she can believe in, one where teamwork is the essential key to their success, or so she hopes.

Even if Jaune Arc's fighting skills are below average, he's improving by leaps and bounds from when he first started. And he knew when to call off a fight and take control of a situation when it truly mattered, like a true leader, while Miss Rose failed to understand the lesson Lie Ren was teaching her on the values of the real world and continued on fighting a losing battle when she could've ran and lived to fight another day. And nothing short of an attack on the school can probably push that lesson down her throat.

Pyrrha Nikos has shown improvement and Nora Valkyrie has learned a thing or two as well. They all have. Each and every single one of them! And maybe, she finally feels hope in the future. She actually can tell herself she can believe in the future of humanity for once.

Turning around, Glynda looks Ozpin straight in the eye, "My gut. That's what's telling me."

That's a surprising answer to hear from Glynda. Believing in your gut is essentially the same as believing in instinct. And Glynda's never been a person who thinks too highly of instinct. Order and control is her motto. So to hear those words leave her mouth has truly thrown the Headmaster in a predicament.

Grabbing his drink, Ozpin swirls the coffee absently, "And which team do you personally think I should take a closer look at?"

"Team JNPR."

Stopping the swish, Ozpin frowns, "Look, I know you're fond of Miss Nikos. But one person does not a team make. But she is still a candidate for—?!"

"I didn't say Miss Nikos," Glynda argued. "I said Team JNPR. All of them."

Silent, Ozpin waited to let the air settle, "Did you know Jaune Arc forged his transcripts to get into Beacon? He came into this school with no combat record of anything. You remember... you saw his performance during initiation."

The Headmistresses momentarily loses her cool and moves out her chair in a panic. Her eyes flash back to the time of initiation when Jaune Arc needed all the help he could get and could barely take on a lowly Beowolf. A lot of past questions make a lot more sense, yet, it's not a totally deal breaker. Not for someone as analytic as Glynda Goodwitch.

No combat record?

It definitely changed her opinion on the boy, but not in a negative light entirely. Maybe if she had learned of his lie earlier on, then yes, but not now. Not when the stakes have been changed and she's feeling lucky. To have no skills or training whatsoever and to have come this far in such a short amount of time? That pushes past her previous expectations. Forgot leaps and bounds, his improvement is extraordinaire. And she may not be able to look away from his forgery; she's able to tolerate it if he shows the promise to belong.

"And you never told any of us this... because?"

By _us_ she means the professors.

Ozpin looks up toward the ceiling and remembers, "Him and I are currently under a bet. A deal, if you will." he took a quick sip of coffee. "When he came to me and revealed the truth... do you know he asked of me?" Glynda shakes her head, "He asked to spare his team. Apparently the boy had overheard our conversation of that unfortunate student we expelled last semester alongside with his team. And without questioning the consequences for himself, Jaune barged into my office and revealed his forgery in order to save his team."

Professor Goodwitch's opinion on Jaune Arc's leadership skills just keeps on improving from here, "And I'm assuming this deal you have him on has something to do with his team's enrollment?"

"Not at all," he mused. "The Arc wanted to make sure that if he got expelled for cheating then his team wouldn't fall under the same punishment for his own actions that were out of their control. It was actually quite admirable of him, that's why I made a deal with the boy instead of expelling him."

"So you see it too, Jaune Arc's leadership capabilities?"

"I see _potential_. I wouldn't have made the boy leader if I didn't."

Thinking, Glynda calmly pressed her glasses up, "Then if this deal wasn't for his team's enrollment? What was this wager?"

Ozpin took a seat on her desk, "Simple. If he wins the Vytal Tournament, I'll allow him to stay. If he should so lose, I merely kick him out, not expel him. Nothing more, nothing less."

Glynda sighs angrily, it's better than straight up expulsion, but still, "That tournament is set up to the point almost no one can win. The dreaded point system can rob anyone of achieving victory."

It's true. Needing three points to win a tournament that's designed even for the losers to fight the winners to the bitter end can in fact rob the winning team of victory. Astonishingly, the tournament is set up so no first place can possibly exist in a realm of certainty. Hypothetically meaning, no one can win and everyone winds up in the same boat, a powerful message for the people of Remnant.

"Sometimes Glynda, it's better for everyone if there wasn't a winner. In a war, a stalemate is the only victory where both sides come out victorious and understand the true taste of defeat. And with that being said, I don't see how Mr. Arc can possibly win the upcoming Vytal Tournament. More importantly, I do not see why you care for Jaune Arc's future well-being. I recall, you were initially against him from day one."

Ozpin slides his eyes thoughtfully towards Glynda, clearly surprised at her change of heart, and she doesn't look away. That was entirely true. She had been against him initially from the beginning. But that was then and this was now. A lot has changed. _Enough_ has changed. More than enough! Potential existed and she'll damned if she snuffed it.

She knows this, yet she's not willingly to give up, "And even if Mr. Arc should prove he has the potential, why not just let him stay."

Ozpin get up from her desk, "Because I'm a man of my word and so is Mr. Arc. A man without his word isn't worthy of being a Huntsmen. If we cannot trust our own future Huntsmen to not stray from their path, then how can we trust them to fight the forces of darkness?" Glynda still looks a little unconvinced and Ozpin's personally amused, "But perhaps you see even more than I do, Glynda. How about we test your gut's instincts?"

Her eyes widen slightly, "What kind of test?"

Ozpin smiled truthfully, "A test of teamwork—a mission. To see if they have what it takes to truly function as a team when the stakes truly matter. I'm willingly to bet on Team RWBY. Are you willingly to wager on Team JNPR?" She says nothing, "It's alright if you refuse. My original offer to the boy will stand regardless."

Glynda bites her lip as Ozpin nears the door.

...

After dinner, Jaune's surprised to find Weiss waiting by his team's door with an impatient scowl. She's tapping her foot restlessly on the floor with her arms crossed as her icy glare lands on him. It's almost enough to make his skin crawl, but she melts her glare just after spotting at him for a second. Then before he can ask why, she's dragging him outside.

"I need you to accompany me to the transit tower."

"Huh?"

And that's how Jaune Arc found himself walking to the transit tower with Weiss Schnee. And damn is it big. Like wow big! And he wonders how he never noticed this tower before, seems kind of hard to miss with all its magnificent glory and other adjectives that are too humble to bask in its presence. He knows what the tower is, having dealt with Weiss shoving the information down his throat during Dust class, but still, they could've just gone to the library to make a call. And the entire walk here has been nothing but pure silence.

"So..." Jaune trails, kicking his feet on the ground. "What's this about? Weiss?"

They stop in their walk so Weiss can glare at him. It actually gives Jaune time to appreciate the newer outfit she's wearing. All white and shiny like a true Snow Angel with a hint of black on the rim of her skirt. Not like he would tell her that, but old habits are hard to break.

And before he knows it, she's hitting him on the chest. Not too hard, mind him, but she's doing it. And for some odd reason, Weiss can't look him in the eyes anymore and that's when he realizes she's mumbling something beneath her breath. Argo, leads to the Arc grabbing one of her wrists after around the sixth hit.

"Weiss—?"

"You're such an idiot!" she yells, glaring weakly at his curious expression. "Only you can find a way to change everything! When a whole team of highly sophisticated team of Dust scientists says one thing, what do you do? Challenge them! Beat them! Prove them wrong!" She's hitting him again with the other wrist and Jaune calmly grabbed the second with a foolish grin. "You're such... you're such a fool. Why are you such a fool?"

"Hey..." Jaune counters kindly, pointing out the obvious. "It's Pyrrha who's using your Dust shards—?!"

"And who was the one that gave her that idea!" Jaune can't answer that without looking humble. "It's because of you... someone has actually found a use for my Dust shards." Weiss's arms shake in Jaune's hands. "Because of you... they weren't useless. They weren't a waste of time."

"Nope!"

He lets go of her wrists and Weiss loses her glare. Then, by his forever confusion and her eternal deniability, she hugs him. It's quick and only lasted for a moment, but it's enough time for Jaune Arc to hug back before Weiss is pushing him away, pretending to fix the nonexistent wrinkles in her combat skirt.

Grinning to himself, Jaune didn't bring it up again, glad in the end he managed to keep his word.

"Now I can see why Blake likes spending time with you." Okay, this catches him off-guard. "You should see how jealous Yang gets. It's always how _he's stealing my partner_ this and _how dare he copy my style_ that. She's really got it out for you." Weiss refuses to admit outright Yang's jealous. Best to let Jaune figure that one out himself.

And since he heard Yang's name, Jaune can't help but ask, "How's Ruby?"

Weiss waves her hand, "Fine. Yang's being a little overprotective, but that's what Aura's for. She'll be good in a few hours."

"Sorry for how roughly Ren treated her."

The heiress actually shrugged, "Don't be. It was a good dose of reality for our leader. She may be capable of leading, but Ruby sometimes forgets this isn't a game to be messing around in. People do get hurt and die becoming a Huntsman. Better if she learns now than when she's on a mission. If anything, Ren's lessons probably did one of two things. Either nothing and she'll bounce back perfectly fine... or it got her to truly think about the responsibilities of being a leader."

Glad no one's viewing Ren as the bad guy except for maybe Yang, Jaune relaxed a little and enjoyed himself. He then noticed he's still currently using Lore over Aura when the sun's warm rays don't quite reach him and he concentrated on switching the two. The moment his Aura comes back, a wave of pressure hits him from out of nowhere and he can sense with Space that the person in question is standing a few feet away from him. But what's truly odd about this Aura is he feels like he's felt this particular one before, even if it's not one of his friends or anyone else in the school.

Glaring off to the side, Jaune's eyes land on some orange-haired girl who wore a lot of green while standing awkwardly to the side as if she truly has no idea what's she doing there? For some strange reason, her instincts tell him he knows this Aura and then there's the fact he can feel it. That means the girl is actively using her Aura this very moment.

He must've been staring too long because Weiss follows his sights and her eyes flash with recognition. Then, she's walking up towards the unknown girl with an indifferent emotion, but one clearly of acknowledgment nonetheless. And Jaune's forced to tag along because of acute curiosity gripping his soul. Although, the closer he gets, the more his eyes start to widen. Until the point he can't find a reason to breathe.

Now he remembers this Aura! It's the one at the docks that faithful night when his team learned his secret. The other Aura beside Blake's! The one that felt _unnatural_ to be around and every step closer reinforced that idea until he's standing beside Weiss with his eyes fixated solely on her Aura.

"Penny?" Weiss reveals the name of his fascination. "Is that you? Where have you've been all this time. Last time I saw you, you and Ruby teamed up to help us find our friend Blake. That was weeks ago."

This Penny girl tilts her head, "I'm sorry, I think you're confused?"

Jaune finds it amusing she hiccupped. He also knows Weiss hates being lied to, "Look, I'm all for plausible deniability, but I won't look the other way considering my partner tried looking for you for days."

Penny takes a cautious step back, "Uh. I think you have the wrong person." _Hiccup_!

Weiss impatiently taps her fingers on her thigh, "What's your problem." Penny turns around but Weiss stops her, "Don't you want to see Ruby... she's hurt." Weiss lied smoothly.

Ruby's not exactly hurt, nothing a little big sister Yang and Aura couldn't fix in a few hours, but Weiss is still her partner and as such, she wants to see Ruby up and ready to head to Vale with a grin on her face. And she's betting Penny here is the perfect person for the job to lift that dolt's spirits.

What luck she has running into her.

"She is? My friend's hurt?" Penny asked before slapping her hands over her mouth. It's too late. Weiss Schnee is already smirking.

"She is," Weiss confirms before looking over to the transit tower. Time is of the essence. "And I would be happy to take you to her so you can catch up with your _friend_ , but I'm busy at the moment. Luckily my _friend_ Jaune here can take you to her."

Some more words are exchanged at Jaune's expense, except, he's not paying any attention to Weiss anymore. All of his focus is set primarily on this Penny girl with a curious glare similar to the one he uses to study the secrets of Aura and Lore. The same glare Ren watches over Sir Scrabbles and the Grimm with. Utter enthrallment captivates the Arc and not in a good way.

This Penny girl wasn't normal.

Of all the Auras he's seen over the months, of all the strange things that's happened to him that defy logic and reasoning, not once has Jaune laid eyes upon or witnessed one as unique and downright creepy as this Penny girl in front of her.

The oddity and utter severity of it all buries his soul in a million different ways. His instincts scream at every piece of knowledge he's collected and crushes all of it underneath the weight of reality. Because Jaune Arc can't fathom how no one else but him can notice the phenomena befalling right in front of his very eyes. There's just no way.

Why?

Why!

Why can't anyone else hear the screams of agony coming from Penny's Aura?!

* * *

 **Author Notes:** Cover art by **Exvnir**. Jaune Arc did sense this Aura back at the docks.


	17. Fossil

**Disclaimer:** I own nothing of RWBY.

* * *

 **Fossil**

 **By: Imyoshi**

Reasoning—connecting logic and action together in a perfect symmetry.

Perfect reasoning is hard to comprehend in a world full of monsters and myths.

Reality's truth can be just as complicated.

Together they prove to be absolutely incomprehensible no matter how hard someone tries to prove them wrong.

The screams just don't stop. They don't. No matter how long Jaune binds his time or pretends to think otherwise, the endless screams just _never_ stop, never cease their cries for pain. They can't. He doesn't know what to say or think. All his Aura logic escapes him in probably his biggest time of need, and it's only when Jaune terminates his Aura control do the shrieks finally go away, but the action hardly settles the nasty sensation in the depths of his soul. Every part of his pride knows he cannot allow those screams to continue. Hiding doesn't make them go away. It simply turns him into a coward. And that's not what being a Huntsmen-in-Training is all about.

"Salutations, Jaune! Allow me to introduce myself! My name's Penny Polendina. It's nice to meet a friend of Ruby's. I hope we can become friends as well?"

Jaune didn't even realize Weiss had already left him alone with this Penny girl until he's forced to shake the odd girl's hand, with the heiress most likely seeking her time elsewhere. Probably heading to the transit tower for whatever it is she's doing—he's honestly forgotten—leaving Jaune to deal with the enigma wearing a green blouse, black stockings, and giant pink bow that's bigger than normal.

She's strange, that much is certain. No real two ways around it.

Still, he doesn't want to make a bad first impression. "Oh! Uh, hi, the name's Jaune Arc. I guess we could be friends. Where's the harm?"

Penny's face lights up brighter than his Aura ever could and she's breaking past his personal bubble. "Sensational! We can go to the mall! Watch movies! And we can even stay up late at night and play board games!"

Jaune cracks a forced smile at the bizarre girl, slightly surprised his strained grin didn't wipe off the ecstatic smile on her face like it would've done to any sane person. In fact, Penny doesn't seem to mind, appearing far more cheerful than even Nora. She even had a kick in her step as he led the way to Team RWBY's room, speaking about nonsensical things friends did or how she couldn't wait to reconnect with Ruby again. Stuff that honestly made little to no sense to the troubled Arc. None whatsoever!

All and all, this was going to be a tougher challenge than he thought.

...

Throughout their short walk to Team RWBY's dorm, Jaune observed the screams from Penny's Aura during random intervals, hoping to catch a sign of fault or reasoning he can ride on, hoping it would lead him back to sanity. None ever appears and he's stuck listening to the cries of anguish that sound oddly feminine. The Arc would even say childish. All of which contrasted Penny's odd, bubbly personality.

Not only does the endless screaming pose a challenge to his Aura knowledge, there's her unique Aura patterning as well. When it comes down to it, no two people had the same Aura—Jaune can't write that as an official law just yet in his Aura notebook until he runs into a pair of twins—but even then, he's having trouble deciphering her Aura. It's not like most. Far from it! Compared to Faunus and humans, it just felt unnatural to be around. Lacking a certain warmth every Aura carried with it.

Roughly, for starters, the darn thing's constantly releasing Space for Jaune to feel and study. Never does it go away. Nor does it seem to weaken over time. Almost like her body's always combat ready or something along those lines. Although, that's only a few of the strange issues he sees with Penny's Aura. The shape altogether is another issue, pure blocky, missing foaminess, and Jaune swears he sees ones and zeroes in the layer of green when he gets close enough. And her Space almost rivals his partner's. At this point, nothing else would really surprise him when it comes to her exceptional Aura.

Too bad that's not the only dilemma he's forced to solve.

For all intents and purposes, he wants to help her. Jaune really does care. She doesn't seem like a bad person. No evidence to the contrary. This is Penny's Aura for crying out loud. Sure, to be perfectly reasonable, he's just met her, but what's happening with her Aura cannot be good. How could it? Last time he's checked, Aura's not supposed to be crying out in pain. And he's the Aura expert here.

"So what's your favorite color? Mine's green!"

Jaune's pulled out his thoughts from Penny's question, throwing her a cautious smile. They're almost to Team RWBY's dorm and the strange girl hasn't once stopped talking since she introduced herself to him. Kind of reminds him of another redhead on his team. After getting past the initial awkward start, turns out Penny's a whole different person. One that loved to smile and remind him he's her friend. Granted, that may just be since he knew Ruby, but he likes to see the honesty in each person. And Penny so far has been nothing but honest and then some.

It's just another reason why he wants to help her.

Sadly, she's worse than Nora when dealing with patience. If Jaune Arc had buttons, Penny Polendina would most certainly be pushing them. Every bizarre question she's asked is random and requires an answer immediately or she pesters to no end. The idea of subtly and difficult doesn't seem to register to her and Jaune's slowly reaching his limit. Even Nora had an off switch from time to time.

His name was Lie Ren.

Reaching Ruby's room, Jaune stopped them in their walk and pondered over Penny's inquire, "Mine? Let's see? I'm gonna have to say... red. I'm a red type of guy. But orange's a close second." Jaune extends his hands out towards Team RWBY's door. "And here we are. Allow me."

 _Knock_! _Knock_!

"Hold on!" Jaune noticed Penny flinched a little from Ruby's voice. For once he can positively say her smile seems to be off centered, crocked even. Proving she does have more emotions than happy, "Come in."

Ruby's not surprised to find Jaune at the door when he walks in, half-expecting him to either talk in Ren's behalf—which she knows he won't—or to have been dragged in by Yang. Neither proves to be the case as Team JNPR's Fearless Leader moves out the way and throws his hands towards Penny, who inelegantly waves her hand at her with a small, timid smile.

"Penny? Penny is that you?"

"Hello, friend Ruby. I heard you were hurt and wanted to see if you were alright." Penny looks a tad uncomfortable to be in the same room as her and Jaune shares a glare between the two adorkable girls, so very lost. "Although you do appear to be hurt, I can see you are alright. I am glad."

It's true. Ruby's stuck in bed, confined even, but Weiss was definitely right. It wasn't _that_ bad. Just a few bruises from where Ren hit her. Jaune can already see her Aura fixing the damage, just not as fast as his would. Clearly, Yang's going overboard. Protective older sibling mode can be cruel and embarrassingly harsh. Jaune should know. His baby sisters aren't allowed to leave their beds until they finish all their chicken soap. How else are they supposed to get better from the common cold! They don't know any better! It's a cold world out there!

"Penny! It is you! Where have you've been?" Ruby suddenly jumps out of her bed and rushes at the waving girl. Her lunge is cut short by a hand grabbing her by the threads of her hood.

Jaune didn't even notice Yang in the room and it seems the gesture's returned with Yang focusing solely on a squirming Ruby, "Hold it, Rubes! Who said you could get out of bed?" Ruby opens her mouth stubbornly but Yang's having none of it. "Uh-uh. Back you go. I'll tie you down if I have to."

"This isn't fair! I'm the leader!"

"Bed!" Yang warned, leader or not, "No buts, unless it's yours in that bed!"

Throwing her back to the pillow covered, blanket securing, and perilous soft prison, Ruby crossed her arms and pouted the entire time. Jaune actually cracks a grin and he's met with a pillow to the face. Doesn't stop him from laughing at poor Ruby's situation, glad emotionally Ruby's not physically hurt, but someone must've forgotten to tell Yang that.

"It's not funny!"

He begs to differ and Jaune has a counter argument on the tip of his tongue, but it's Penny who beats him to the hilarious punch. "Forgive me, friend Ruby. But I find the need to point out Yang's treatment of your injuries is quite humorous. Would you not agree, Jaune?"

Ruby tries to warn Jaune not to agree with the defiance in her silvery eyes. Somehow he must've missed that message, "Yup! Hate to be you right now, Rubes."

Ruby melts a little into her sheets and Penny breaks ice again, "I'm sorry, Ruby. You're right, it's not funny." _Hiccup_! "But I'm still glad you are alright."

Ruby tries to stay angry, really stubbornly tries, but finally seeing her friend again makes that next to impossible. "Eh, it's no big deal." They can all see past the fake bravado. Her eyes then light up all excited. "We have so much to catch up on. Like what happened to you after the docks? I spent forever looking for you!"

It's Jaune turn to flinch. Docks? That's strange. Now that Ruby mentions it, he does remember feeling Penny's Aura for the first time around the docks. Ruby's and Blake's too. There must've been a fight going on at the time with the multiple waves of Space colliding, but he had team problems to deal with at the time, robbing him of the chance of ever learning what truly happened that day. And eventually he just forgot about it. Having lost interest rather quickly.

Part of him almost wants to ask. Maybe it'll lead to him uncovering the truth to Penny's absurd Aura. Another part would rather avoid pointless drama altogether. He's already got the future Vytal Tournament to eat away at him, hanging just around the corner, now only three weeks away. Tangling him up in a bigger web of secrets will only make things harder than they truly need to be.

Penny looks unsure for a moment on how to answer, sliding Jaune's a cautionary glare he picked up but didn't call out. Again, it's all pointless drama.

"I'll tell you later, Ruby. Promise," Ruby is hesitant, but Penny takes a seat on her bed smiles largely at the bed confined girl. "So, how have you've been? I hear your team got chosen to compete in the Vytal Tournament. Aren't you excited?"

Ruby throws a fist forward, "You bet. Team RWBY's going to win. There's no way we can lose." She subtly points at Jaune. "Don't worry, Jaune, I'll go easy on you. Maybe you'll end up fighting Penny in the Vytal Tournament?"

Jaune tilts his head at Penny, "Wait? You're in the tournament?"

Penny mirrors his expression like a puppet on strings, "And you're in the tournament? No offense, but you don't look that strong? Your muscle mass seems severely lacking for a typical Huntsmen-in-Training."

Jaune can hear Yang laughing in the background, but he ignores her. It's not his fault he didn't train in a combat school for four years, "I'm the leader of Team JNPR, Jaune Arc at your service. The very same team chosen by the Kingdom of Vale to compete in the Vytal Tournament... sadly."

Penny moves faster than he expected and she's shaking his hand, "What an extraordinary honor you've been given!"

He pulls his hand away and rubs his neck in uncomfortably, "Yea, that's... one way of putting it."

"He's also the partner of Pyrrha Nikos." Ruby chimed in, further dragging him down the rabbit hole. "So you better watch out, Penny. She's been training him." Jaune would like to point out Pyrrha hasn't taught him anything in weeks, but Ruby's not finished. "Pyrrha's going to kick so much butt with her amazing new weapon and—eh! Hey? I just remembered!" Ruby points accusingly at Jaune. "You still haven't shown me that gun you've been working on."

"Like I told you during Dust class, Rubes, I'm saving it for the Vytal Tournament." Jaune pretended Ruby wasn't sulking—which she totally was—but then Penny's acute curiosity proves to be his down fall as she looks to him with imploring eyes. Something tells him it's more for Ruby than her. "But... I guess I can show you what it looks like at least."

Ruby almost jumps out of her bed, "Really?!"

"Sure," Jaune grinned, moving up to Ruby and poking her on the side of her head with his index and middle fingers pressed together. "Better watch out, Ruby! This gun can blow your head off. I once almost killed a Death Stalker with it. It's that deadly."

She tries to swat the imaginary gun away and Jaune mockingly pokes Ruby in the head again with the barrel of his _hand_ gun a few more times.

That's five! Too easy, Yang!

"Stop it!" Jaune moves Shooting Star away from her, grinning the entire time. Ruby glares and hits him softly on the chest. "Fine, don't tell me, jerk!"

Hey! He wasn't lying. Jaune showed her what Shooting Star looked like. It's not his fault she can't see the power behind his awesome weapon. It's kind of sad coming from a certified weapon's nut. He literally could've blown her head off and no one could've stopped him on time. Luckily for her, Shooting Star's safer than the average firing _arm—_ that's six, Yang—which is ironic for the immense stopping power behind the gun. The only safety's is his will power to not blow her head off.

"You'll just have to wait for the tournament like everyone else." Jaune moves away from the bed and noticed a snazzy dress on Yang's bed. "Oh? What's this? New clothes? First Weiss and now you, Rubes? I didn't know you owned a second outfit."

Ruby crossed her arms, "And how do you know that's mine?"

Jaune holds up the small, red colored outfit, "Oh, I don't know? Where should I begin? The color? The size? The combat skirt? The cape attached to it? Please, take your time stopping me, I got all day."

Her arms remain crossed, "It's for a super-secret—!"

"Weiss already told me you're heading to Vale later." Jaune cut in, tossing the clothing back onto Yang's bed. He takes pride in Ruby's gasping mouth. "Wanna clue in on this team bonding exercise? Maybe I'll steal it to use on my team? I know it was Blake's idea, maybe I'll go ask her?"

Yang's suddenly grabbing Jaune by the arm, dragging him towards the door, "Alright! You've had your fun, Vomit Boy! Now if you would excuse us, we have an evening to plan. Time to go!"

"How come Penny gets to stay?"

Yang doesn't answer him, pretty drilled on pushing him out of the room. Looks like she's still sore about Ren beating Ruby in that fight, she just has to be. Normally she's a lot more open to teasing Ruby, encouraging even. Perhaps he should consider asking Blake to smooth the ice over with Yang before she kicks up her rivalry notch with him and burn him. Best to avoid any more of Yang's torture in the near future if possible.

Pushing him out, Jaune's met with the confused stares of both Neptune and Sun outside the hall. The slam of the door shakes them back to life and Sun's already wrapping an arm around Jaune before he can so much as get a word in.

"Hey, dude! Long time no see! Whatcha been up to?"

Jaune looks back to door and then Sun, shrugging his shoulders easily, "Teasing Ruby and somehow pushing Yang's buttons. Same old, same old."

"I get that!" Sun moved past Jaune to knock on Team RWBY's door. "Well, take care, Jaune. We were actually looking for Team RWBY. I wanted to take the trees and surprise them, but Mr. Boring here wanted to take the safe path."

"Hey!" Neptune cried, acting very nerdish. "Well excuse me if I prefer living. Heights aren't my thing. Sorry if I have feelings."

Sun deadpanned at his emotional friend, "You're an inspiration to guys everywhere."

Feeling he should step in, Jaune pointed back the direction he originally came from, "Oh? Well, if by any chance you're looking for all of Team RWBY, then you're missing half of them. Weiss and Blake aren't in there. Weiss's at the Transit Tower. And I'm not sure where Blake's at. Maybe check the library."

Both the guys stop from knocking on Team RWBY's room, interested at what Jaune just said.

"Wait? Weiss is at the Transit Tower?" Neptune asked.

"Blake's probably in the library?" Sun added.

To be fair, Blake can be anywhere. That's part of her Blake charm. She can be in the mess hall or the courtyard. If Jaune was a gambling man, he would bet the library. She can't be in his team's room; she hasn't attacked him from the shadows yet. Suffice to say, he doesn't have a clue to Blake's whereabouts. In an honest to fair guess, she could be watching them as they stand there like a couple of fools in the hallway. Just waiting for the perfect moment to strike. What or why she would is as good as anyone's guess.

Again, it's all part of Blake's charm.

"I know Weiss is at the Transit Tower. If you hurry, you can probably—?!" Neptune runs past Jaune and the Arc blinks and turns his head towards the direction where Neptune ran off. Slowly he looks back to Sun, "Anyways... Blake can be anywhere—?!"

And Sun's gone too.

Alone again, a tense silence fills the hall before Jaune drops the grin in record time, fixing a hard glare at Team RWBY's door that's unnatural to anyone but his own team. He may have been all smiles and laughs moments ago, but deep inside he's sadly torn in two. Talking to Ruby and dealing with Yang's weirdness may have distracted him for a short time, but even now he can feel Penny's unnatural Aura from outside the hall. If he tries hard enough, he can even hear the cries of pain coming from the room.

The sounds send a cold shiver down his spine.

Killing his control, his eyes refused to roam elsewhere, intently stuck at the problem at hand. Luck would have it Penny's a special case, but what makes her tick is still an unknown, an obstacle for him to overcome in his pursuit of unlocking the secrets of Aura and Lore. She's a challenge. A possibly dangerous one, but she's also a person whose Aura is screaming out for help. There's no way avoiding it.

The only way Jaune can learn what's happening with Penny's Aura is to delve deeper into the secrets of Aura and Lore, past his experienced knowledge and further into the unknown where possible hazard lurked. Only then can Jaune Arc say he truly he tried to help and solve the problem at hand.

Looks like his small week break of Aura control is coming to an end. No more games! Time to get back to learning!

Glaring away from Team RWBY's dorm, Jaune locked away the glitch and entered his team's room and found Nora playing with Sir Scrabbles on Ren's bed. She's tossing the Grimm into the air, catching it right before it tumbles down onto Ren's bed before tossing the Sir Scrabbles right back into the air in an endless loop. No one else is in the room, devoid of other life, so it's just the two of them.

"Hey, Jaune-Jaune!" Nora laughed, hugging Sir Scrabbles tight in a loving embrace. Jaune still doesn't know how she can trust a Grimm so freely. "Whatcha up to?"

"I'm going to practice on my Aura and Lore for a bit." Jaune rubs his hair and looks around the room. "Where are Ren and Pyrrha?"

Nora pulls on Sir Scrabbles tighter, resting her chin on top of the Grimm's soft head, "I don't know. I think Pyrrha went to go study for Professor Port's test next week or maybe I think she said something about the Headmaster calling her for some boring meeting. She's smart like that. Ren went to go eat more of his gross health food."

Jaune paused, wondering if he should check up on his friend first. It's not impossible for him to figure out why Ren destroyed Ruby the way he did. The Lore cloak must've been influencing his negative emotions during the fight. Lore's properties did have a tendency to do that if left unchecked. And whatever anger and negativity Ren previously had must've been left free from disturbance throughout the entire day until it finally broke in a wave of amplitude mixed with deadly power. A likely scenario since Ren's so good at hiding and bottling up his guarded emotions.

What a complicated problem to deal with.

Reaching for his Aura notebook, Jaune added in Penny's Aura for context, roughly sketching a picture of Penny's head next to a list of her Aura's extraordinary and abnormal properties. Only now does he realize what a great artist he's becoming, but that's neither here or there. He's far too preoccupied writing down each and every note for future study. Part of him wished Ren was here. His opinion did always shift things into a better sense of alignment. Or at least gave him a different of point-of-view to consider.

"What's wrong, Fearless Leader?" Jaune's pencil breaks upon the paper of the notebook and he's about to ask how she knows something is wrong, but Nora only hugs Sir Scrabbles firmer. "You're usually so happy whenever you write in that boring diary of yours."

Surprised from Nora's observant skills, Jaune shut the notebook a second later and tossed it across his bed, even Sir Scrabbles has focused its emotionless eyes at him, but that's to be expected from a Grimm. He then walks to the hole in their wall and glares through it, finding some peace from the sun's rays piercing in. They rain down a light of warm that fills his soul with renewed hope. This hole is a symbol of all he's accomplished, proving that nothing's truly impossible, and any problem can be overcome with just enough resilience and belief.

Calmly breathing in, Jaune let out a shaky sigh and peered over to loudest member of his team. Nora's not like everyone else outside this room. He doesn't need to plaster a fake smile for her because she's one of the few he doesn't have to hide his true feelings from. Any and all secrets between them are known. Some of her hardships are his and vice versa. There's no need to hide anything from her. So it comes to no surprise when he continues to adorn a frown around her.

"I've met one of Ruby's friends today."

"Really?" Nora jumps off of Ren's bed and slides up next to his personal bubble. Sir Scrabbles fidget a little from Jaune's impassive frown, "Is she nice?"

And therein lies the problem, "Yea, she is, a little bit weird, but she's nice. Her name's Penny Polendina." Jaune's frown turns into a glare. "There's something wrong with her."

"Is she sick?"

"No." Jaune laughed hollowly. He moves away from the wall and runs a tired hand past his messy hair, "That would be so much easier. But she's not sick. It's her Aura. It's so... different."

Nora pressed Sir Scrabbles closer, "Different how?"

"Different bad!" he sighed. "Very, _very_ bad! Her Aura's literally screaming out in pain and I'm the only one who can hear it. Something's not right about her. I just don't what the problem is."

Nora appears lost, unsure what to say. Words become meaningless for a short period of time until Sir Scrabbles boops Nora on the nose, bringing her back from the conflicted emotions dwelling deep inside her soul. Her heart feels heavy when she zeroes in on Jaune's rare frown, but Sir Scrabbles lightens the load with a soft nudge of its head, for once not liking the negative emotions radiating from the human snuggling it.

"How are you going to fix it?" Jaune's tempted to say he's not going to, very tempted even. But he can't. His Arc pride won't allow him to abandon a person in need. No one deserves an Aura that screams out in pain. He knows if Nora or any other member of his team captured the same problem, he would do anything in his power to help. "Fearless Leader?"

"I don't know," he finally answered. He's lost but not hopeless. "But I'm going to try to fix it. I'm heading to Emerald Forest to train. I'll be back in a few hours."

Nora knows her leader can practice his Aura control in the room but not Lore. So it doesn't come off as a surprise he wants to train in Emerald Forest. In a funny, cosmetic sort of way, her leader's done his best work in the forest. Maybe Jaune can find the answers he's looking for there.

Feeling Sir Scrabbles shuffling in her arms, Nora looks down at the tiny Grimm who makes a cute sound. Seconds later she can feel his stomach rumble and she's in front of Jaune before he can reach the door.

"Before you go, can you make me some Aura candy? Sir Scrabbles is hungry!"

Jaune frowned for a moment before reaching for his spare Dust shards. The number was low before he even used them, but the sight's still unsettling compared to previous hundred he had beforehand. Damn these rising Dust prices. They're really cutting into their Aura shard supplies. Feeding Sir Scrabbles is already a strain on their provisions as it is, but he can't exactly say no to Nora.

Maybe he'll take up Pyrrha's offer to split the costs.

Taking a few minutes to create a limited supply of Aura shards, Jaune dropped the last of them into the bag. He glared at the shiny shards, remembering a time when _these_ had been his biggest challenge. Now they're just food for a Grimm to consume. Another mystery he should probably focus on as well, but he simply doesn't see the priority overshadowing Penny's.

Pocketing an empty Dust shard, Jaune tossed the bag over to Nora and she catches them with glee. The Aura shards aren't particularly powerful on their own—at least by his standards of Aura—but he's pretty much drained away most his Aura to create them. He's got just enough to use Excalibur or fire one shot off with Shooting Star, but even that's pushing his reserves to their limits.

Looks like Lore training's on the table.

"Here you go. Don't overfeed him, okay? I can't use them all." Jaune reached for the door, but Nora stops him again.

"Well, what else is Sir Scrabbles supposed to eat?"

How's he supposed to know? "Beats me, I don't know. Feed it whatever it is that sloths like to eat? I think they enjoy leaves."

Nora gags, tongue out, not believing her precious Sir Scrabbles enjoys the same nasty food as Ren. How could her precious Grimm soil its taste buds with such fishy food? Leaves and vegetables as food? It's downright criminal! Ren must be acting as a bad influence around her impressionable Grimm. She'll show him! There's no way he's corrupting poor Sir Scrabbles!

"Don't even joke about that!" Jaune grins and messes up Nora's hair before heading out. She shuts the door once he's gone, finding his amusing smile stupid and forced to look Sir Scrabbles directly in its soulless eyes to prove a point. "You don't like yucky leaves... do you?"

Sir Scrabbles wisely chooses to pinch an Aura shard from her hand and pluck it into its mouth.

...

Wandering quietly in the hall, Lie Ren allowed a pleasant, small smile to adorn his normally natural, calm features as he returned from the mess hall. A second later, however, he lightly zeroed in his sharp glare at Team RWBY's dorm, pausing for the briefest moments into this walk before resuming his journey back to his team's room. Memories of his earlier match resurface back to him, and a tiny twinge of guilt sprouts underneath his calm exterior. Quickly he snuffs it out, knowing he could've been a lot worse to Ruby if he wanted. She's lucky he didn't use StormFlower on her and just stuck to close hand-to-hand fighting. Proving another reason why this rivalry she's conjured up for them is meaningless.

Entering the room, Ren spots Nora on his bed, fast asleep with Sir Scrabbles underneath Nora's bed. If it wasn't for its bloodshot eyes, Ren would've missed the Grimm entirely, but he didn't, and now the thing's under his lazy influence. Which, in layman terms, means basically nothing and total immunity from strained activities. The sloth Grimm knows far too well Ren won't actively pursuit it unless it was absolutely necessary or if it sought after _his_ attention.

Moving over to Nora's napping, snoring form, Ren took a moment to admire her sleeping beauty before reaching out for a blanket and tucking her in. In no time her instincts reach out for the blanket and she moans in content before dwelling deeper into dreamland, smile three times bigger.

From a logical standpoint, she must've fallen asleep waiting for him, caught in one of her Nora patent pending, midday naps. This of course left him alone to deal with any mess she's caused, and except for the messy room and destruction of Jaune's bed, the damage is limited and easily fixable—if he gave a damn that is.

Oh well, time to relax.

Ren never even makes it to his bed before Sir Scrabbles peeks out from underneath, covered in dirt and grime. The poor thing's looking at him for some guidance and Ren has no choice but to sigh as he plucks the Grimm from the floor, fixing the sloth Grimm with a look of clear annoyance. One meant to destroy an enemy without touching them.

Well, what did Sir Scrabbles expect? The Grimm had chosen to stir under _Nora's_ bed. It made its bed, now it's gotta lie in it. This pun game is too easy. No wonder Yang likes throwing them out there. No challenge whatsoever.

Now Ren's stuck cleaning up Sir Scrabbles or else they'll be stuck with a messy Grimm on their hands. And Ren doesn't need that problem to become known to their leader. Jaune's already having trust issues with allowing a sloth Grimm to live with them. Since day one he's been against it, hardly ever showing his opposition in not so much as words but gestures. The only real reason Sir Scrabbles is here is because Jaune's weakness is practically identical to his own.

They both can't say no to a big eyed Nora. Probably didn't hurt she almost died too.

Holding the Grimm underneath his arm, Ren glared intensely at Sir Scrabbles, "Why do you this to me?"

He's met with a boop to the nose; like that action will solve all Ren's problems and bring world peace. A delusional action, one Ren knows the Grimm has picked up from Nora from spending too much time with her. She's slowly becoming an interesting, but exhausting impression on the little guy and it's tiring them both out. More him that it anyways.

"You know you need a bath now, right?" Sir Scrabbles tilts its head at Ren, hoping to escape such a Fate. Unlike Nora, Ren can't be won over by its cuteness. "You've forced my hand. Either I give you a bath... or Nora does?"

Lie Ren almost, _almost_ laughs the way Sir Scrabbles flinches at the idea of what a bath done by Nora could lead to. He doesn't of course, willing his Lore cloak to open up the rim of his collar and allow the sloth Grimm to see his amused smirk instead. The smirk itself deserves its own patent.

"This is why you don't play underneath people's beds. They're filthy and covered in dust bunnies. Nothing good could come from it."

Heading for the bathroom, Ren gave a passing glance to his sleeping childhood friend before entering the bathroom. He turned on the sink and searched for his shampoo and soap. Then he waits until the water gets lukewarm before placing Sir Scrabbles into the sink, drenching the Grimm in a waterfall of water which is followed by a dazzling shampoo.

Rubbing the Grimm's scalp, Ren fixed an even glare at it, "This is my Narudo Spiral shampoo and it's very expensive, so I urge you not to get dirty often."

Observing the orange scented and colored liquid getting rubbed into its fur, Sir Scrabbles wonders if the male human enjoys this fluid because the human loves the smell of oranges or because the color resembles the female human's hair. Seemed like such a bash and utterly useless color in the wild, ill-suited in even the most elusive of camouflage. No self-respecting creature should ever be caught dead using such a color to hide.

Glaring intensely at the sloth Grimm hiding in the sink, Ren had his cloak's sleeves pulled up as he washed the Grimm behind its ears with the running faucet drowning out the outside noise. The collar of the cloak has been split open, allowing the human's curious frown to be present as dirt, dust, and grime got washed off the Grimm's fur. Sir Scrabbles was oddly curious at this thing they called _soap_. Seemed to it like it was just a bar of fats and oils, highly contradicting to the aspect of cleaning, especially its fur. Such strange creatures humans were, saying one thing and doing the other.

Inside their team's bathroom, Ren splashes the Grimm's head in an avalanche of water, getting most of the soap off. His hands scrub the tiny Grimm's neck as he fights to remove the stubborn dirt, solely fixated at the amount of filth escaping Sir Scrabble's fur. Tiny splotches of black fur being to coil around the drain and Ren reaches out to pull it free before a clog can happen.

He carelessly throws it away, never letting his perspective eyes leave the soapy Grimm, "I don't understand how you got so filthy so fast, Sir Scrabbles. You sleep in all day and hardly move around? Most of the time Nora's holding you, when did you have time to get dirty?"

Lie Ren will never learn why Sir Scrabbles loves crawling underneath their dust-bunny polluted bed when they were gone, it just does. The darkness underneath those beds always makes sleep all the sweeter. Basking and hiding the Grimm in a calming veil of darkness that reminds the little guy of its monstrous king.

Closing its eyes from another splash of water, Sir Scrabble opens them to find the female human hiding from the male human's presence, apparently having woken up from her nap by most awkwardly from the running water. Her head's peeking out from the side of the door as she observed them interact in acute silence unfitting for the female. Her eyes are shining with an all too familiar sparkle and the love radiating from her soul is next to impossible to ignore. Even the way she grips the door securely speaks all too much about what's transpiring in her pancake filled mind.

Catching onto the game, Sir Scrabbles would warn the human bathing it if it possessed the power to do so. The male better be on high alert or else. The female's taking notice of his parental behavior and it's causing a reaction to occur within its caretaker. Multiple factors could be the cause of this, either from a lack of family to call her own or a need to start one. There can even be factors the Grimm cannot see. So unless if the male feels like having his arms full with future little ones, then the bathing needs to stop now before the female can make her move. Sir Scrabbles can't even imagine the picture the male's printing for the gripped female.

Removing its sights from the driven female, Sir Scrabbles peers back to the male cleaning its claws, slightly worried for the human's well being. The Grimm wonders if he should warn the human male that acting fatherly and dependable is attracting the female's natural urge to produce offspring with such a caring and protective mate, especially one that takes all of her wacky tendencies and showers them with pure affection. The urge must've only gotten stronger after the male proved its strength against their king and displayed the powerful Aura he commands.

Ren finishes cleaning the Grimm up and plucks Sir Scrabbles from the sink and wraps it inside a cocoon with a towel, perching the tiny Grimm on his shoulders like a small child. Small droplets of water spill onto the floor and Ren makes sure to rub the little guy thoughtfully to get all the water off. Sir Scrabbles then shakes some of the water off and doesn't realize the mistake it's caused before it's all too late to stop. By covering Ren in a layer of water, it's enticed a unique reaction from the human. One's that filled with a light smile, small laugh, and hair as equally as wet as its own.

"You're such a handful, you know that?"

Only Sir Scrabbles can see the bridge of red building up on Nora's nose. Only Sir Scrabbles can see the want in her eyes. And only Sir Scrabbles can feel the wave of lustful emotions spreading across the room. Nothing's more apparent than right now. Every other little thing outside this bubble is insignificant. And the bubble's not imperishable.

Stop it, human. Keep this up and halting the female will become next to impossible. Repressed instincts can only be contained for so long. And the lock around her heart's breaking more and more by the second. Eventually there will be no stopping her once the cage is broken.

Shutting off the sink, Ren turns around and spots Nora staring longingly at them, no longer hiding behind the door. Both Sir Scrabbles and Ren blink at her, mimicking their reactions and looking oddly family like. The lack of emotions only cinches the picture perfect moment and Sir Scrabbles actually holds its breath upon seeing the way Nora struggled to stand.

Her desire is clear. There's no way this male cannot see the emotions skewed across her face. Nothing can hide that want. That _need_. And there's no one around to barrier themselves between the two. Everything depends on the strength of the male human's will and character.

"Look who's awake." Ren smiled, holding Sir Scrabbles close to his chest. His smile disappears a moment later when he spots the telltale signs on her person. "Nora? Are you hungry? You're drooling again. And there's a touch of red on your cheeks."

Sir Scrabbles this time looks up at the confused Ren, showing an emotion close to pure skepticism, borderline disbelief really. Apparently the stronger a human is, the denser they are as well. Simply putting it, there cannot be any other answer. At least, no other logical answer.

Her emotions are repressed and she smiles, "Nope! Just wanted to check and see what you were doing." Her smile turns saddening, "And what do I find, you giving Sir Scrabbles a bath without me! How could you, Ren! I missed his first bath!"

Ren reaches for a few droplets of the water on his face and flicks some at Nora for a memento to remember by, "Next time you should be awake then. I found him underneath your bed, covered in dust. Which brings up the question, Nora," Ren's eyes narrowed. "What's underneath your bed?" Nora chooses to remains quiet. "You know what, never mind, I don't want to know. Where's everyone else?"

Silent for a moment, Nora pointed in two different directions, "I'm pretty sure Pyrrha's at the library or somewhere with the Headmaster and Jaune-Jaune went to Emerald Forest to train on his Lore stuff. He's all super serious because there's something crazy going on with some new girl's Aura and he went to go train by himself." Ren raises an eyebrow, curious to what his leader's focused on. "Poor Jaune looked sad when he left."

Now Ren's really curious, "Oh? Then I guess we better go check on him before he does something foolish." It's an honest joke to lift up Nora's spirits, but the execution falls terribly flat. When she doesn't follow him to the door, Ren stops altogether. "Nora? Aren't you coming?"

Nora looks torn and shakes her head with a tired yawn. "Nah! I'm fine here! It's your turn to drag his sorry butt back here before Pyrrha comes back and goes all crazy."

She tries to play off her sadness with fake cheerfulness, a tactic that's clearly failing. Both Ren and Sir Scrabbles can see through her mask, it's weak compared to their emotionless ones. The only major difference is Ren's and Sir Scrabble's analysis to the lie she's giving. Ren's holds a lack of true understanding compared to the Grimm whose very power is to read emotions down to the base levels. They're on the same page, just different books entirely.

Sir Scrabbles sometimes still cannot believe their king gave this human attire worthy of sloth royalty. Especially one's as dense as he. Can the human male not see his lack of interest is hurting the girl? Pushing her away in a never-ending game she's getting tired of. Or is he truly that blind to the truth? Trapped in a web of lies beyond his perception? Where not even his unique eyes can see the truth hidden within.

Ren moved forward and towered over Nora's frame, keeping his voice calm and gentle, contrasted heavily to what he acted upon Ruby, "Are you sure?"

Ren's knows not push and that's enough for her, "Yup-yup!"

He hovers around for another minute before silently _booping_ her on the nose and pushing Sir Scrabbles into her open arms, and then he leaves. Nora's smile falls a little the moment he shuts the door and she clings onto Sir Scrabbles.

Sir Scrabbles actually feels bad for the female. Maybe it'll act extra cuddly and adorable for her? She is, after all, the only barrier protecting it from the leader of the pack's influence. Without her, Jaune Arc's doubt would've rid Sir Scrabbles long ago. He's the only one who lacks of any sort of sympathy to it.

Holding Sir Scrabbles out, Nora pouted at the Grimm, "How do you get someone to notice you, Sir Scrabbles? What am I doing wrong?" The Grimm in question blinks, "You don't know either, huh? It's not fair!"

Plopping down on Ren's bed, Nora placed the Grimm on her head as she lazily throws her arms and feet over the sides of Ren's bed while Sir Scrabbles rested neatly on her orange noggin.

"It's not fair!" she sighs, groaning pathetically. "Not fair I say! I always knew Ren was handsome, he's always been handsome, but did he have to go and get all delicious!"

Nora hates herself, but she secretly hates Ren more for changing over the months. He wasn't supposed to get all confident, strong, emotional, and powerful in such a short period of time. It was supposed to be a gradual change if at all. Allowing her to slowly adjust to his improvements and changes. Beacon was supposed to make them better, not turn her handsome friend into a walking furnace. And part of her misses her old, super lazy friend who rarely talked, the other more _dominant_ part of her wonders how it'll feel to have his powerful arms wrapped around her waist.

Nora's head falls flat into Ren's pillow, muffling out the words, "I'm so screwed. Ren knows something's wrong. I can't keep secrets from him. He can read me like a book." Sir Scrabbles wants to roll its eyes at her delusional assumption. Clearly if the human male can decipher her feelings, then this wouldn't be an issue. "What am I going to do, Sir Scrabbles?"

Figuring he should help his sadden caretaker, as best as his limited skills could, the Grimm crawled off Nora's head and peered over the bed for an answer. It comes to the Grimm the moment it spotted some fragments of the Aura shard the leader had created earlier. And it reaches down and plucks the shard from the floor before pushing it into Nora's face.

"Huh?" she lifts her head off the pillow and grabs the small Dust shard. "What? Are you hungry again? I still have a few Aura candies left, but Jaune-Jaune said not to eat them all." The Grimm points to its stomach and then hers before her eyes light up. "Wait! I got it! I'll make Ren a super special meal to show him how much I care! And these little babies will make them taste extra scrumptious."

She hugs the sloth Grimm, pressing her cheek to its own before running out the door. Sir Scrabbles on the other hand is stuck wondering how humanity has lasted so long against their kind.

Honestly, humans were such a fickle, complicated bunch.

...

Swirling three Gravities around the forest clearing, Jaune had his hand extended out to better his control, using his other hand to add Lore to the empty Dust shard in his hand in the process. It's a slow, agonizing practice filled with faults and tedious concentration, but how else is he going to learn and get better. At least he's much better than before. Not by much, but better still.

Calling forth the Gravities, Jaune focuses on his Lore, swinging his hand in an arc that the Gravities follow with a small lag. His control isn't complete; it's an improvement from before, like all practices essentially lead up to, he just hates the difference between his Lore and his Aura. There's always something beyond his knowledge that keeps him rooted to the past, unable to properly wield the dark power without fail. Aura may have not been the easiest powers to grasp, but it never gave him this much trouble compared to Lore.

Maybe the problem haunting his thoughts is simply keeping him from discovering the truth to his lack of complete control? It's possible, but highly improbable since his Lore control has always been a riddle since the very beginning. Gravity's not an easy power to wield, very use ineffective in the midst of battle.

When it all comes crashing down, Lore's never been an easy power to learn. Doesn't help he's even more confused than before. This whole Penny Aura problem has thrown him into a rather perplexing and morally aligning loop. Whatever Aura knowledge he grasps is being tested and he's not sure he's still up to the challenge. So many discoveries are waiting to happen and it vexes the poor Arc.

The Aura expert in him wants to study her fascinating Aura. The Arc in him wants to help her. While the leader in him votes to avoid her altogether and to ignore her and instead focus on the upcoming Vytal Tournament. Each idea sounds perfect in its own special way. Each has their reasons and their faults. None really point out to a perfect path where all three are gained. And Jaune can't really decide which to follow. It's not like he can just study Penny while avoiding suspicion.

That's simply asking too much of him.

Swinging his arms out, the Gravities follow suit and Jaune tries to will them to move faster. They're fast, just not fast enough for his liking. He doubts they'll ever match Aura's speed and power—no matter how much training he puts in—but Lore's got its own unique ways of fighting back. So he's not totally lacking in the excitement department, just misplaced.

Willing the orbs to crash down onto the floor, Jaune glared as the Gravities impacted the dirt, pulling in several objects to its range of gravity. He wills them to move up, not really surprised the orbs can hold heavier pebbles than before. It's come to be expected, more control meant a stronger gravity, nothing really too amazing for the Aura prodigy.

Twirling the three into a circle, Jaune lowered the gravity vortex closer to the ground and widen his eyes slightly from the cracks appearing on the ground. They form and spread the closer the three Gravities got closer, lessening when Jaune spread out the Gravities apart, thus robbing them of their joint gravitational pull. When he brings them closer again, the cracks spread apart more before chunks of bigger bedrock break from the floor and join the floating stones and pebbles.

Again, the wow factor's just not there. Not after having witnessed a screaming Aura. Nothing can really surprise him at this point.

Breaking them apart, the heavier rocks fall under control of Remnant's gravity once more. He wills them closer to his body as he sits on a bolder with one leg arched out, twirling them in a clockwise spin around his person. They're almost childlike in the way they move. Free and out of the control of laws and authority, Jaune would even goes as far as to say peaceful even.

He envies them.

"Nora said I'd find you here."

Never missing a beat, Jaune continued to will the Gravities to dance around him as he twirls his eyes to meet Ren's, "And her track record remains spotless."

Ren shares with Jaune an amused grin before meeting up with his leader next to the rock. His small grin dies and his pink eyes are locked onto him, "You want to tell me about this strange Aura Nora was going on about?"

Jaune laughed a hollow laugh, "Must we always talk about the negatives? Can't we just enjoy the bright, sunny day we've been given?"

"Fair enough. The weather's been pretty nice recently."

Jaune shakes his head and jumps off the boulder, "I don't know. You've might've just jinxed it with your running strain of bad luck." Ren doesn't say anything and Jaune's shoulders fall, "It was weird... this Penny girl's Aura was screaming? Screaming! Like someone was in pain. I just don't get it."

"So what'd you do?"

"Nothing, I didn't know what to do." Jaune throws his head back, groaning. "I don't have all the answers."

"I'm not expecting you to. Stop putting so much pressure on yourself." Ren shrugged, saying words with no hint of malice or undertone. "Maybe nothing's wrong with her Aura and it's just something her Aura does?"

Jaune looks at him evenly, "Even I know what her Aura's doing is not _natural_. No. There's definitely something wrong with her. I just don't know what. But it's her and I have to find a way to fix it, or at least understand it."

'No one's asking you to do anything, Jaune." Ren reasoned sensibly.

Jaune just scoffs, "What? Am I supposed to leave her Aura alone?" Ren's piercing glare says it all. "I can't do that. You don't what it sounds like it Ren. You didn't hear it! There was so much screaming. I just—I have to do something! Her Aura's in pain! It's not right! It'll be wrong to just leave it alone. My gut just won't let me look the other way."

Fixing his leader a stare that's unreadable, Ren simply looks away towards something else. The Gravities rotating around Jaune catch his attention and he levels with them, oddly curious to their power. Ren even pokes one of the orbs, finding limitless fascination in the act of being able to touch the orbs without consequence, fear all gone and instincts to run missing.

The Lore cloak hides most of his body from the sun's rays, reflecting none of the light. One of his hands is hidden inside the cloak and only the skin on his face and white of his pants reveal any sort of color. For such a bright, sunny day, Ren's Lore cloak really sucks the life out of the area. Not to say the Gravities' ominous appearance didn't accomplish that as well, it's just a simple observation Jaune makes.

It's ironic in a lucky sort of way. Ren helped him practice his Lore control; brave enough to put himself in harm's way to further his goal, and now Ren has Lore of his own to control. Well, not exactly control, but the dark power did give the means to an end. So, in other words, his leap of faith paid off.

"Making another Lore shard?" Jaune looks down at the blackening Dust shard in his hand, never missing Ren's lackluster gaze.

"Don't worry," Jaune sighed, pocketing the shard away. "I'll make sure to let Nora know I have this and for her not to eat it."

Their talk is interrupted from some rustling in the woods. They center their sight towards the direction and are mildly surprised to find an imposing looking Alpha Beowolf crawling out the forest. It seems to be utterly confused as it stared at them, unsure whether to gawk or growl at their presence. Neither Jaune nor Ren make much of a move, not afraid, simply interested at the Grimm's future reaction. Fear fails to grab them and for good reason.

For one, they both know the Lore surrounding them is essentially masking their presences in a way the Grimm deems friendly. But on the other side of the spectrum, they are human and look human, and are most definitely human, so the line has to be somewhere in the muddy sand. Can the Grimm see it? That's the million lien question. And if push comes to shove, they have no doubt in their mind that this will end in their favor.

Honestly, it's all up to the Grimm now.

Scoping the situation, Jaune measures the Grimm's movements, not sensing anything in Outer Space, meaning it hasn't actively searched out the power yet. Which means the Grimm doesn't see them as a threat, at least not yet. Then his eyes focus on the familiar scar running across its torso and the cautious steps it takes around them. And finally Jaune's eyes widen in recognition.

He points at the Grimm, "Wait a minute... I remember you..." Ren tore his eyes away from the Grimm to his leader. "You're that Alpha Beowolf I let go. Yea, right after I killed that Death Stalker, you were there. You're the one that sacrificed itself for the pack."

"You know it?"

Jaune gave Ren an honest smile, "Yup! It's that Beowolf I told you about it during our camping trip. If it wasn't for this Grimm, I would've never got the idea to talk to Ozpin. It was this Grimm that gave me the push I needed. I wonder what it's doing here."

Filing away the Grimm's involvement with one of his leader's decision for later, Ren points out the obvious, "I think it was attracted to your negativity, Jaune. That's probably why it's so confused when it actually found us."

Jaune's quiet for a moment, leveling the Gravities to float beside him. He doesn't know how to act, "So what am I supposed to do? Fight it? For some reason I don't feel right attacking the thing."

Ren briefly pictures Nora hugging Sir Scrabbles with a bright smile. "I get what you mean. It doesn't seem right." Not after Ren's little Grimm have soul theories ingrained itself into their line of thinking. "We should probably just ignore it. I doubt it will attack us. Not while it's having a hard time discerning whether we're ally or enemy."

It sounds like a solid plan. One Jaune Arc would've taken a part of in a heartbeat, but the Alpha Beowolf has other plans and moves slowly towards them, cautious as ever. The Huntsmen-in-Training don't move a muscle, confident enough in their own abilities to react in time and counter whatever level of power this sole Grimm holds. And their non-threatening actions are rewarded with the Alpha Beowolf sniffing them when it gets close enough. It sniffs Ren for only a short time, picking up a heavy presence of another of its kind on him before setting its nose on Jaune.

The Grimm glares at him, sniffing his body from head to toe, taking its time and Ren smirks with something akin to amusement, "I think it likes you."

More like it recognizes Jaune from the first time it encountered him. Then, too, it remembers Jaune's face and power he wields that was oddly similar to its own kind. And the Grimm's not going to forget about the tiny creature that slew a Death Stalker. It does have an intelligence that rivals all the younglings of the pack. There's a reason it's survived this long. Mayhem and strength only carry a monster so far.

Moving back, the Alpha Beowolf holds a curiosity to the human who's always surrounded by negativity. It doesn't know what to think of him. Considering it spared it the first the time, the Grimm's willingly to remain docile, knowing the human won't attack unless provoked. Then the monster's looking at the human's companion, another male human, who possesses the same power as its kind and reeks of the sloth species, more accurately their imposing king. The scent from him is strong, nothing the humans could ever detect, but any true Grimm species can.

Interested at how the humans ever got bestowed such a power, the Alpha Beowolf takes another moment to sniff them both before stepping back, heading towards the forest. They make no move to pursuit it, never allowing their sights to deter but not hunt, only watch from a distance. And that's almost enough for the aged Grimm—almost. Instincts demand it now leave them be. Maybe, just maybe its leader can answer the strange call it feels? Would be a shame to overlook such odd humans.

Jumping into the woods, the Alpha Beowolf howls into the bright, sunny sky without pause and neither of humans move when it does. They do however react when it sings yet another howl, deeper down into the forest where few humans have dared to trek alone. Another howl and another one after finally lulls the humans into its _reasoning_.

"I think... I think it wants us to follow it." Ren observed, feeling a sense of déjà vu. "Perhaps we should."

"And how does that sound like a good idea? What possible good could come from trusting a Grimm?" Ren fixed Jaune a subtle glare as a passing breeze moved his Lore cloak. "Still doesn't make it a good idea."

 _Howl_!

"This is your chance to walk away. There's no reason for me to go on without you. I cannot possibly see what I would have to gain if I went alone."

Jaune crossed his arms for a moment, floating the Gravities above his head. They remained hovering as he raised a single brow at his friend, "Just let me ask you something... how can you trust the Grimm's power so easily?"

Ren doesn't need to ponder over the question, "Because Aura's caused me nothing but pain while Lore has removed that pain. I can feel again for the first time since I was a child. It might be a blind chance to believe in their power... but my luck hasn't fared too well with Aura, so I'm willingly to play the odds."

Jaune sighed aimlessly and walked towards the direction of the howl, trusting in this blind chance Ren's jumped into, "That's a big gamble."

"What can I say, I'm feeling lucky."

"Keep that up and you're going to steal Yang's job away. She won't like that." Jaune warned jokingly.

"I'll tell her it was your idea."

Gasp, "You'd really sell me down the river like that?"

"In a heartbeat."

Following the howls, Jaune and Ren pushed through the forest in a calm but alerted manner. They kept their wits sharp as they trekked through all the vegetation, passing each one of the trees, noticing the deeper they went in this direction, the taller and wider the trees got. By the time they finally reached the end, hardly any light penetrated the top of the trees, encasing the entire area if a soft afterglow of light reflected from the leaves. And what they stumble upon is a pack of dozens of Beowolves, all various ages, and all looking directly at them with a mixed reaction of hostility and confusion.

How the staff of Beacon has yet to find this place will forever remain a mystery to the duo.

"Ren, I have a feeling we're not at Beacon anymore."

A few of the nearby Alphas move towards them, circling around the duo, acting as a barrier, and before Ren and Jaune can prepare themselves, a large howl cuts through them all. It's unlike any Beowolf howl they've ever heard of before. The howl pierces through the air like a knife through butter, signaling the Alphas to step back. The younglings appear even frightened by the howl, cowering away into the distance. The duo can even see the Alpha that led them here has joined the others in making room.

Then they see it.

A Grimm far taller than the both of them, towering them by at least double their frame compared to their height, but its imposing figure lacks any real bite for the moment. The Beowolf overseeing them is snowy white in appearance, having almost its entire body covered in bone and age. It stands above a rock formation peeking out the earth, vastly different compared to every other Beowolf in sight. Its presence alone demands respect and awe. And then the monster leaps across the field in one fell swoop and lands directly in front of Ren and Jaune where the earth trembles beneath its massive feet.

Neither of them had raised their arms in retaliation, for Jaune never felt a wave of Outer Space crash upon him and Ren followed suit with his leader's reactions. Although that can all be changed in a heartbeat, so their instincts remain sharp and ready.

Studying the humans that entered its domain, the beastly Beowolf circled them, finding the scent of the Sloth King on the one wearing a cloak of shadows while the other manipulates the same power as their kind. Then the Beowolf takes a closer look at the sun-furred human, seeing something akin to recognition, finding this human resembling another it's once encountered in the past. But what really caught its eyes are the strange orbs of darkness floating above the human, radiating the same power as their own. They abide by his command, remaining loyal to a human, doing nothing of the sorts to rob them of the warmth dwelling deep inside. Then everything changes the moment the Beowolf sniffs Jaune's right arm.

That's the scent of a Monarch Leo's blood.

Wolves verses Mountain Lions, a game of hunter and hunted that's been going on since the beginning. Like humans, even the Grimm don't see eye to eye, such as the Fate of the lions and wolves. Carnivores and herbivores have never ever truly been equals in Mother Nature's chain of command. One hunted and the other hid, an unbalance when the issue of territory became harder to simply ignore, but the scent of dried up blood on the human's right arm speaks volumes to the sudden disappearance of the Leos. Whereas the other human next to its companion bears no clue of sloth Grimm's blood or hint of foul play anywhere on the fur of the Sloth King.

Profoundly confused, the Beowolf takes a second glance back at the human with invisible blood on his arm. For the scent of the Monarch to be found on this being, a human no less, strikes the core of the Grimm. There's no two ways about it. This human killed the Monarch Leo and drove their pride far away from the forest.

What a perplexing conundrum.

Interested and curiosity sorely peeked, the Beowolf sniffs Jaune's head once more before turning around to rest back on its rock, placing judgement on them in silence. For now it shall allow them to remain. The other Beowolves take that as their cue to study the humans, but this time they approach the duo differently. The older, wiser ones still have an air of caution round them, but seem less hostile than before and the younger ones make it no secret they're overjoyed and run up to the two with eagerness rivaling their friend Nora.

One of the younger ones runs up underneath Jaune's arm and he's forced to scratch his fingers along its scalp, "I guess we've been accepted into the pack? I-I don't know."

"Or we're being tested?" Ren hummed, far more used to dealing with affectionate, over sugared, killing machines.

"Should we be concerned?"

Ren eyed the Beowolves circling Jaune as they sniffed him intensely. Honestly, "You've already come this far. I don't think they'll stop us if we decide to leave."

Sighing, Jaune rubbed the smaller Beowolf beneath its chin, "At least wolves are better than dogs." Jaune allowed his sights to settle on their obvious ruler, "What type of Beowolf is that by the way? I haven't seen one like that before."

Ren racked his brain for an answer, thinking back to Professor Port's lessons, "I think it's called a Zeta Beowolf. They're higher than the Alphas."

This only confuses Jaune more, "Shouldn't a Zeta be lower than an Alpha?"

Ren shrugged his shoulders towards the beast, "You tell him that."

Not liking the idea of angering a pack of Beowolves in a dense forest, Jaune decided the Zeta Beowolf can keep its name. No skin off his bones. And he walks further into the softly lit forest clearing with some of the Beowolves no longer watching his movements as he got closer to their leader, whom is resting on top of the rock structure. Trees in every direction surrounded his vision, obscuring most of the light that tried to penetrate from the outskirts of the forest, and the area's unnaturally quiet, but the Beowolf's boney appearance sticks out nonetheless.

The Arc finally reaches the stone before him, troubled to why it seemed so familiar, like he's seen this same exact rock formation somewhere else before. But his musing is cut short when a dark, black mist starts to radiate from the Zeta Beowolf's body and hide all the color and light around it in a constant blanket of coldness that's undeniably Lore related. It's never-ending, passing by his feet and hiding the forest floor or anything else it touches in a pure shade of black. All except the Grimm and Ren.

Jaune can't feel the power affecting his Lore in anyway, but he confidently guesses his Aura would speak a different tale. Not to say he's going to rid his camouflage in amidst a pack of Beowolves, especially since he used up most of his Aura back at the dorm. It's just a logical thought his expertise sums up, noting that for later observation. And the way the Zeta glared one eye at him pushed him to further keep his Lore powers in check.

Reaching down, Jaune planted his hand firmly on the dark blanket, surprised at how truly cold it felt on his fingertips. The strange power crawls partially up his hand before falling back down, like all of gravity's servants do, before rushing past his body to meet up with Ren's feet. Through Outer Space Jaune can feel the Zeta releasing a pressure, but not making any move to attack, meaning this strange cover of Lore is a conscious act?

Jaune stood up and peered over to Ren, "Now I'm really confused. Why can't anything make sense anymore? And what the hell is this strange, misty Lore on the floor? It's a little freaky."

The ninja looks down, eyes roaming over the little details, "I don't know, but whatever it is, it's hiding all the matter it touches in a dark substance." Ren points to the Gravities still hovering over Jaune, "It sort of acts like your Gravities, reflecting no light to see. Creating a dark matter for lack of a better word."

"Dark... Matter?" Jaune echoed, kicking some of the stuff around. It's true. He can't see the ground, plants, or rocks anymore or spot any light reflecting off the stuff, but his own Lore kept the stuff from missing with his colors and he was able to kick it. "You think I can somehow do this?"

Ren just shrugs his shoulders, occupied with a sudden Beowolf crawling underneath his hand. Jaune's forced to make up his own theories, knowing Ren can't really say _no_ to an affectionate creature. It's actually a pretty funny weakness of his, next to his love for terrible food and need to be sarcastically witty.

Testing the limits of this Dark Matter Ren so eloquently put it; Jaune shuffled his foot on the stuff, hoping to see if it would push the mass of darkness away. It doesn't and he's forced back to the drawing board. Everything's just a learning experience and this has actually distracted him for the time being, including the obvious threat of being in the jaws of a Beowolf pack.

Concentrating harder on his Lore, Jaune tilts his head as the Dark Matter gets less dark and reveals the layer of dirt and grass underneath, barely. The moment he halts his concentration and lowers it, the layer of darkness creeps back, hiding everything it touches. So unless he's actively controlling his Lore to a certain degree, he can't see past the stuff, which begs the question of how much control does he actually need to command such a strange and inimitable power.

Pushing his experiment, he wills the Gravities to get close to the fog, intrigued the moment they make contact. Just like when he tries creating a Supernova in Lore form, they collapse almost instantly, right into the Dark Matter, but something's amiss. He can still feel his control over the Gravities lurking beneath, like they never got consumed by the Dark Matter or the gravity they released outclassed Dark Matter's, and he wills them to float out. They do, escaping the power without any change to their properties or outward appearance, suggesting Dark Matter's gravitational pull was indeed very weak.

Interested, Jaune wills one of the orbs to go back inside, still feeling his control over it, and he makes it move towards Ren whose still busying playing with a smaller Beowolf. Then he silently commands the Gravity to float out from behind his friend, floating harmlessly out from the shadows, completely undetected. His friend's none the wiser and he wills the orb to float back down into the mist, making it travel across the area without detection.

"Hn?" Jaune moves the Gravity up, collecting all three back together. He wills them away, absorbing the Lore back into the system. "I gotta learn what this stuff does."

Kneeling down, he slaps his hand over the Dark Matter, interested in the way the dark energy traveled up his arm before falling down. His hand is a color palette compared to the drenched, black floor and he tries to grab the dark power. It's not an impossible task, simply a difficult one. This stuff is just out of his reach in terms of practice. He can feel the grass and dirt underneath, he just can't move the mass out of the way to see it. And even when he pulls the grass and dirt from the floor, they come up covered in Dark Matter, lacking color of even a true physical form that isn't Lore.

Dropping the sediments, Jaune paused for a moment, encasing his hand in the power of Black Hole. He swipes his Lore covered hand across the floor of Dark Matter, amazed the gravitational pull of his hand actually ate up the Dark Matter like it does Aura. And for a quick second—before it gets covered up with more Dark Matter—Jaune can see the grass and dirt again.

"Now we're getting somewhere." He's still confused, immensely so, but it's all about taking one step at a time. "I wonder if all Grimm can do this."

Standing up, Jaune looks over his shoulder for nearby Beowolves, trying to spot any that might radiate the same power as the Zeta. An almost wasted task as only the strongest of the Alpha Beowolves barely produce a fraction of what the Zeta makes, subtle and weak. The weaker ones prove to have no power, acting young and very foolish. So only the Zeta can make such a strange power. Probably meaning Dark Matter used up a lot of Lore and concentration. Far more than any of the Alphas were capable of creating for themselves.

What a shame.

Glaring at the Zeta, Jaune measured the Grimm's Outer Space, impressed with the pressure it's releasing. It rivals that of the Sloth King, striking something close to fear in Jaune's soul, yet it makes no move to get up from the rock formation it lays on, or rather black smudge it lays on. The Grimm only stares at him, matching Jaune's glare, but lacking any real sort of bite. Somewhere in the background they can hear Ren playing with the child Beowolves, but the noise gets lost.

Sighing to himself, Jaune looks away from the calm monster, noting how far the Dark Matter has traveled. Not very far. The dark energy barely reached the forest trees, just out of reach of the age bark. The Lore simply remained in a fix circle around them, intriguing Jaune to what secrets the power has or the limitations it possessed. And he's not the only one; Ren's busy taking experimental steps on the floor while a young Beowolf circled around him.

The Dark Matter, just like it did with Jaune, tried to cling to him but failed miserably with each step and retreated back down onto the forest floor. Jaune's going to go out on a limb and say it had something to do with the Lore cloak Ren was wearing. Nothing else was free from the dark mist unless someone counted the Grimm. Only Lore driven creatures could essentially walk over this power without getting entrapped in a layer of darkness. It seemed like the most logical choice until they could test the boundaries of what Aura has on the mysterious power.

Appetite satisfied for now, Jaune looked up to the sky and saw the sun beginning to set. In a few hours Team RWBY should be heading to for their trip to Vale and Jaune wants to see Penny once more before they leave, guessing she's going with them, giving Ren and him no choice but to exit the forest.

"Let's get out of here, Ren." Jaune said, walking across the field of Lore.

Nodding, Ren petted the playful Beowolves and followed his leader into the forest. The moment they step out of Dark Matter's circle, Jaune turns around when a surprise amount of pressure crashes upon him. What they see catches them off-guard and shows Jaune Arc Dark Matter's most impressive property.

It's ability to float in the air and spread out!

Jaune's eyes widen as a dome starts to fall over the line where the Dark Matter ended, "This is new."

Just like Aura, Lore's not bound by Remnant's gravity, they're bound by their own set of rules. Game changing, maybe, but also very limited. Lore's and Aura's power are based on how much control the individual has over them. And when it comes down to it, Remnant's gravity will always be superior; no control can change that. Lore just holds the pieces to a bigger puzzle. Kind of explains why the power can't exactly entangle itself onto Ren and Jaune. Their Lore prevents that from happening.

Seeing the Dark Matter fly out into the air and eventually reach a maximum height and then spread out, Jaune can just make out the range Dark Matter reached on the forest floor. It's not far, but it's not short. It does cover a generous range, limited by the Zeta's own control, yet more than enough to hide the pack from wandering eyes as it encases them in a dome of darkness. One of which Jaune learns can be seen through if a person has a certain degree of control over Lore. Control over gravity!

Then everything becomes clear when the Zeta's Outer Space suddenly vanished the second the dome is complete.

"I think I get it now!" Jaune suddenly laughed, loving it when he learns something new. "Ren, I need you to take off your cloak! Do it real quick!" Ren gives Jaune a critical stare but complies, ridding himself of his protective garment. And the very second he does, his eyes begin to widen. "Hurry! What do you see?"

"... Nothing."

"Exactly, Ren! You were right! Dark Matter doesn't reflect or absorb light!"

Concentrating, Jaune switched over to his Aura, watching as the dome of darkness begins to vanish before his very eyes, alongside the Grimm inside. His instincts are screaming at him to be careful, warning him of an invisible force he cannot see. The cold of Lore falls over them like a cold winter's day. And no matter how hard they try to see the dome, they cannot. Aura's light simply doesn't reflect or allow for them to see what essentially doesn't interact with light. What they cannot see is everything Dark Matter can react with and that's Lore.

But they know there's something there.

In other words, the Zeta Beowolf is hiding the Grimm in plain sight. That's why no one's discovered this pack so close to Beacon. They wouldn't be able to see the Grimm. Without Lore's gravity to interact, Dark Matter cannot be seen or felt. Light cannot penetrate or reflect off the dome. Plus, Lore's negativity property to cause fear in people probably pushes them to avoid any area encased in Dark Matter, depending on the range it can reach, probably even for the most seasoned Huntsmen. And Jaune has a sneaky suspicion Aura cannot see Dark Matter unless it was already trapped inside its gravitational hold to begin with.

It's a unique area of interest, one that cannot be seen through Space and even Outer Space. Sure, Lore can see Dark Matter, but it cannot see what's inside unless the Lore's gravitational properties proved powerful enough to be able to interact with the Dark Matter or if he merely walked inside with or without knowing. And to prove his point, Jaune takes a step forward back into the den of monsters.

"Ren, stay back," Jaune warns, going back to Lore mode. He begins to walk to the dome of Lore that's suddenly come back into view alongside the Beowolves inside, which are all staring at them with mixed reactions. "And tell me... can you _see_ me?"

Jaune humbly walked back into the Beowolves' territory, standing in the dead middle of the clearing with all the Grimm confused. Ren's holding his Lore cloak close to his chest, so the Grimm can't see the difference with a barrier of Lore masking his Aura.

"No."

Jaune smirks, holding his hands out towards the mass of Lore surrounding the pack and the sky. The light from the sky is scarcely noticeable because his Lore allows him to see past the Dark Matter, barely, but with less concentration he knows he'll be standing in an arena of darkness where no light interfered.

Yes, the area's indeed a unique Space. What Lie Ren basically doesn't see is a large quantity of Dark Matter right in front of him in what Jaune would call an area that's both invisible but not fake. Where power lies right in front of Ren in a space with nothing to show for it and as empty as it is full, holding the dark energy of Lore that can't be seen with Aura.

Essentially, what Ren sees is an _Empty Space_ filled with the vegetation and nothing else. A Space they both know is there but cannot be interacted with. Not without the power of Lore. One completely invisible, even to Aura's light.

Stepping out, Jaune left the dome of Lore, feeling positively perfect. He spots Ren trying for the life of him to see the Dark Matter, but it's a lost cause and Jaune points at the cloak in Ren's hands, signaling him to put it back on. He does and his eyes widen once more as the dome comes back into existence, hiding the Grimm inside and reflecting no light to be seen. Not unless he directly walked inside like his leader.

"Well..." Ren trailed, heading back towards Beacon as the mass or Lore continues to exist. "That was something."

"Just give me some time," Jaune coughed, following right behind. "I'll have Dark Matter figured out in no time."

"Oh?" Ren questioned, taking the slightest of seconds to stop. "So you're calling it Dark Matter. Should I be flattered you're using my name?"

Jaune ignores him, holding his hands out, "I think I'll call it... Hide, Dark Matter!"

Ren shakes his head, poking holes in the plans already, "You can call it whatever you want, but still you gotta learn how to control the power first, Fearless Leader. And considering how far you've gotten with your Lore... that can quite possibly take forever."

Jaune sulked angrily, "You know... you're really raining on my parade today. You've been doing it a lot recently. You're like some rain cloud or something," Jaune didn't notice Ren tense up slightly. "What's up with that?"

"It's what I do."

His leader glares at the cloak hiding Ren's mouth and body, already figuring out the real problem with Ren. It's a small problem, one he can solve himself, but if left unchecked could have some serious backlash. "You know... that cloak of yours is really starting to change you," Jaune pointed out with a sense of Aura knowledge. "I know having control over your Aura is letting you... feel. But be careful. Don't forget that Lore makes all your bad emotions all that much worse."

Ren flashes back to his earlier bout with Ruby. Maybe in some sense he pushed her a tad too far. Lore's such a dangerous power. Giving before taking. At least he assumes that's how it works. Ren can't really recall what Lore's taken from his leader, but time will tell them eventually. Like all things true, time reveals all secrets and heals all wounds. One second at a time. And Lore's slow, it could use all the time it needed to catch up.

Looking off to the side, Ren coughed, "So... how does Dark Matter work?"

Jaune tilted his head, racking his brain for the right words, "The short version... when it really comes down to it, Dark Matter has a really weak gravity. Like, really, _really_ weak. Nothing compared to Gravity or Black Hole. Honestly, Gravity can mess around with Dark Matter, and Black Hole just eats the stuff up. Kinda confusing, but I'll get the gist of it. But what really gets me is the power it has to hide stuff in an Empty Space!"

"Because Lore doesn't reflect light," Ren mussed. "You can't see what light can't touch. How does Aura react directly with Dark Matter?"

"Heck should I know," Jaune sighed, throwing his arms back as they left the dense part of the forest. "It's not like I could suddenly just use my Aura in there. There was a lot of Beowolves."

Ren stopped walking, thinking over his leader's words, "So what you're saying is anything involved with Dark Matter can only be seen or interacted by Lore."

"Yea, that's sounds about right." Jaune scratched the side of his face, smile weak. "This is all just a wild guess, though, but once I learn to harness the power, then we can test it."

Ren peered over to the dome, "So I'm assuming you've figured out the drawbacks?" True be told, every technique Jaune learned or observed had a drawback behind it. Nothing's perfect and this Dark Matter stuff just screams out weakness.

Jaune scoffed, "The only thing I could figure out about the stuff is it can't be used by the weaker Grimm. Some of the Alphas can use a tiny bit, but the damn thing must take a lot of control to use and a whole bunch of Lore. It's going to take me forever to learn how to use the stuff. I don't know where to even start."

The ninja mussed over the answer, casting a backwards glance towards the forest. A soft wind breezes by and he looks to his leader, "Are you going back?"

Jaune hesitated, thinking over the idea of walking into a den of Beowolves again. Even if the monsters didn't outright attack them, some didn't trust them and he returned the favor. Silently he wonders why that Alpha Beowolf even bothered to lead them to their home. What other mysteries in this big, dangerous world have he yet to uncover? What's lurking beneath the subtext of Remnant?

"I guess I have to. How else am I going to learn?" Jaune sighed, rubbing the side of his hair. "This whole situation has really thrown me off balance. First with this Penny girl's screaming Aura and now this. Really shows me how little about Aura I actually know."

Ren blinked once, grabbing Jaune by the shoulder, "Well, whatever you choose, just make sure to warn us. I don't need Nora to go stir crazy looking for our missing leader because he's _hiding_ somewhere."

"That depends... do you still plan to betray me if I tell Yang you're stealing her material?"

"Nothing would bring me greater joy."

...

Reaching their room's hallway, Ren's pink eyes slide over to Team RWBY's dorm, causing a mix reaction to build in the pit of his stomach. The Lore in the cloak fights against his weaker emotions, forcing him to feel a rotting sensation unsettling parts of his soul and Ren sighs evenly before addressing the issue. Now that he remembers the Lore's more subtle, negative aspects that tag alongside the power, he's more apparent of it. No longer does the darkness hide within its shadow. And perhaps it's not too late to maybe fix battered relationships haunted by the cruelty by his misguided actions, somewhat.

There are still parts of Ren—the more reasonable and logical parts that hate Ruby for stealing what's not hers—that know Ruby Rose is in the fault. Manipulated or not, the Lore fed off the base of his emotions. He's just not going to roll over and accept all the blame. Letting someone get away with a crime is for the weak minded. He's throwing her a deal if anything. An agreement where both parties benefit and accept blame at the same time.

Only seems fair.

When they reach their team's door, Jaune's baffled to why Ren's remaining behind in the halls. "Aren't you coming in?"

Ren shakes his head, "Later. There's something I gotta do first."

Jaune frowns before shrugging his shoulders, "Suit yourself. I got notes to write."

Glad his leader doesn't pry, Ren sets his steel gaze on Team RWBY's door, figuring now's the best time to finally put an end to this pointless rivalry once and for all. And he might as well apologize to the adorable girl, knowing the Lore from his cloak drove him a little insane, that much he sees now after spending time with a pack of Beowolves. How could anyone not notice. But Ruby's not completely getting off the hook. Not entirely.

She still stole from him. There's no two ways about it. He's just going to end this on friendly terms.

Knocking on the door, a moment passed before it's opened wide with Ruby being on the other side. She's wearing a new outfit, looking ready to head out. He can't see anyone else behind the door, coming to the conclusion she's the only one in there. Part of him wonders where the rest of her team's at, and the other side of him doesn't really care to know.

Back to the matter at hand, Ruby seems surprised to find him at the door before her confusion is replaced with adorable envy. Then she's inside his personal bubble, attempting to poke him on the forehead without any warning given. A valiant but pointless effort as he grabs her wrist before she can get even remotely close. To be fair, she does try to break free of his firm grip.

"You're still too slow." Ruby glares at the pink eyes peeking over the rim of Ren's Lore cloak, finally breaking free of his hold. "You'll never reach me at this rate." She tries a few more times and Ren intercepts them all before proving his point by poking her on the forehead.

"Gah!" Ruby cries, rubbing her forehead from where he poked her. She glares adorably at him, "What are you even doing here? Come to rub it in some more?"

Feeding her rivalry, Ren counts to ten mentally before allowing the rim of his Lore cloak to open up. The act still stuns her and she probably wishes to know how his cloak did that. All good questions with answer she'll never get. Not now and not ever.

"No." Ren says finally, lacking emotion for the emotional girl. "I've come to apologize."

Ruby doesn't seem to believe him, "Did Yang force you to say that? Jaune? Blake? Weiss?"

As if Yang could force him to do anything and his leader can be crueler than him when he wants to be. Blake needs to stay on Jaune's good side and Ren doubts Weiss is going to force Jaune or any of his teammates to do anything after what he did for her. No. This is all Lie Ren.

Ren glared nonchalantly at her, "No... This is all me." She still seems skeptical. Fair enough, "I've come to make it up to you."

He hadn't planned on saying that, but it seems to be the right words because Ruby's eyes light up like shooting stars. Her body's practically shivering in anticipation, but she quickly squashes that hope, trying to act very professional in a situation where mannerism is not needed. Nonetheless, Ren can still see her holding herself back from ruining this moment, even when she's holding all the cards and he's left with a joker.

And she still ends up folding, "Really?!" She's leaning forward on her tippy toes, still not reaching his height. Didn't matter to her. All that mattered was whether or not he's serious. "Oh! I mean... really?! Really! Really! You pinky promise?!"

She throws her pinky out and Ren childishly reaches out and wraps his around hers. "Yes. I promise." Ren lets go of her pinky, fixing her a level glare, "Now... what is it that you want. I'll let you decide."

Ren didn't think Ruby could get anymore happier. He had been one-hundred percent wrong. The innocent smile on her face rivals Nora's, putting the sun to shame in the process. Any all previous anger she held onto before is gone and she grabbing the sleeve of his cloak in a hurry. Then she stops, runs into her team's room, and comes out with Crescent Rose in her hands. Whatever previous engagements she had seems to have been cancelled on a whim as she begins pushing him down the hall.

"Hurry up! Move your butt!"

"And where are you pushing me to?" Ren already has a decent idea where she's taking him.

"Training! You're going to help me get stronger so I can finally beat you!"

Ren stops her from pushing him any further, throwing a cautious glare at the adorable leader. "That's what you want to waste your promise on? Training?"

"Hey!" she argued, shaking her fist. "It's not a waste of a promise! This way I can finally beat you."

Ren let the words sink in, "You want me to train you... to beat me? You know how crazy that sounds, right? And you want to do it now? Weren't you heading to Vale today? Do you really have time for training right now?"

"Stop trying to _weasel_ out of it and move it!" Ruby began pushing him again, but she's stopped when Yang suddenly grabs Ruby by the shoulder.

"He has a point there, Rubes." Yang added from out the shadows. Blake and Weiss are right behind them with Sun and Neptune. "Vale now and train later."

Ruby looks torn between her older sister and Ren. On one hand, she can finally learn Ren's secrets, on the other, she did promise Blake. And Blake's her sister's partner, meaning Ruby's stuck doing the responsible leader thing again where she puts their needs before her own.

Darn it!

Ruby backs away from Ren, annoyed at his amused smirk that disappears just as fast as it had appeared. She kicked some imaginary dirt on the carpet and groaned. "Fine."

Giggling, Yang grabbed Ruby by the shoulder and led them towards the stairs, but Nora's sudden presence stops them in their tracks. In her hands are stacks of fluffy pancakes that Lie Ren definitely _knows_ he did not make and she holding onto them with pride and joy, practically radiating success.

"I made pancakes!" Nora skips to the front of the group, pushing them out for Team RWBY, Sun, Neptune, and Ren to see. "Who wants some?! I made them special!" The girls of Team RWBY all declined, ready to head to Vale, but the guys, minus Ren, are all for it.

Neptune grins at the meal, "You girls go on ahead, we'll catch up in a minute."

Sun waves them off, not giving them the time of day. He sees bananas in one of them. "Yea, what nerd boy said. How can I say no to free food?!"

"Well, come and get it!" Nora runs into her team's room with Sun and Neptune hot on her trail.

Only Ren is left outside the room and his glare has increased threefold. His mind is racing and he glides into the room while Team RWBY heads to Vale to go on their team bonding trip. And the moment Ren steps into the room, his emotions race as Nora hands Neptune, Sun, _and_ Jaune pancakes! Pancakes she's made with her cooking skills. The very skills Ren has forbidden her from ever using!

Oh no! Jaune's too much in a good from making a Lore discovery to see the error of his ways. He can see Sun and Neptune as poor victims of circumstance, but Jaune should know better! Never trust anything Nora makes! A lesson Ren's learned the hard way.

"Stuff your faces!" Nora grinned brightly. There's pancake mix all over her face and outfit. "I spent all day making them." Another clue to why no one should eat them. Pancakes don't take that long to make. "I call them Nora's new Dust Enhanced Goofy Good Delicious Pancakes! They're made with special ingredients!"

And that's the final straw! Special ingredients? Ha! Ren knows better than too trust anything Nora cooks. Years of living by her side has taught him that if nothing else. And the poor ninja feels pity for his fellow males, unable to stop them now. Not while they're greedily holding the plates close to their chest.

Watching the poor fools accept the plates of steaming unknown, Ren gets ready to block their hands in a last ditch effort when a plate is suddenly pushed into his chest with a squirming Nora on the other end. Her face is slightly red and her hands are shaking, but she's mustering up the courage to give Ren his pile of fluffy doom. Whatever confidence she previously had is all gone. Replaced with this nervous girl standing before him.

"I hope you like them, Ren. I made these ones _extra_ special for you."

Confused and slightly terrified, Ren takes a calm step back but that proves to be the wrong move because Nora's suddenly looking like someone kicked her while she'd been down. She holds back her disappoint quite well, hiding away her feelings like before during their training trip with that pesky mask of hers. Tears and sadness may want to escape, but her stubborn smile proves superior in the end. And then his Fearless Leader comes to her rescue, snatching the plate from her hands and forking a piece of the breakfast food, twirling the dough while missing the shine from the tiny Aura shards embedded within. Not even Neptune or Sun notice, quickly biting into their third bite without even swallowing the first two.

Grabbing Ren by the shoulders, Jaune pushed a forkful of pancake into his mouth while taking a bite of his own, "Hey, c'mon Ren! Lighten up already and try some!"

 _Gmph_!

...

"Nora?"

"Yes, Pyrrha?"

"What happened?"

"I... I don't know." She really doesn't. "One minute they were eating the pancakes I made and the next second they're devouring everything like starved people. Then out of nowhere, Sun has this great idea of going on a guy's only road trip... and they just left without me."

Checking the damage done to their dorm room, the champion leveled down to expect the plates of syrup stained evidence. They're empty, not a morsel left to consume or share. Her train eyes then zero in on the broken door hinges, like something or _someone_ simply couldn't wait to get out of their room and just had to leave in a hurry. There's no other two ways about it. Nope!

Studying Nora's story, Pyrrha tilted her head at the missing items she's noticed gone. The guys didn't take anything, except for the pile of forgotten sunglasses Nora had stashed away and one of Blake's questionable ninja outfits she keep hidden in their closet, thinking they didn't know of its existence. But what's even stranger, another precious but forgotten idea has been taken as well.

"I wonder why Jaune would take Crocea Mors with him or why they would leave their scrolls behind." Pyrrha's eyes land on the spotless plates. "Nora... what were in those pancakes you made?"

The person in question timidly pushes her fingers together, "... Flour, sugar, baking powered, salt, and love?" Pyrrha's eyes narrowed, waiting for the obvious more. "Maybe even some of Jaune-Jaune's rock candies. Oh! And some chocolate chips!"

Pyrrha opens her mouth and then closes it, wondering what the implications of cooked Aura shards could have on a person. They're packed load with Aura from her leader, and his Aura alone is on a different level compared to the vast majority of everyone. Even a shard filled with one Supernova could give a person a much needed boost of strength and power. Least not forget Jaune's high reserves of Aura. If he had wasted all his Aura making those, then Pyrrha couldn't imagine the aftereffect! Nora already proved there was such a thing as Aura overload—a _hangover_ practically!

To think, Nora just gave those four food that grants immeasurable strength for who knows the consequence. Never mind poking at Nora's cooking skills. Pyrrha's seen what she can do to a kitchen with just a mixer and some flour. "This can't end well."

Nora looks over to Pyrrha, wondering for a second where she's been all day, then her eyes zero in on the person standing just outside their broken door. Her smile's bright and she waves almost robotically at her, never breaking the façade even when Nora tugs on Pyrrha's shoulder.

"Pyrrha? Who's that?"

Looking over to her new friend, Pyrrha breathed in deeply before addressing the question with trained hospitality, already forgetting about the problem at hand. This one's far more important that the guy's sudden road trip, which she's not suspiciously jealous of as well, "This... this is Penny, Penny Polendina... my new _friend_. I met her some time during my meeting with the Headmaster. And Penny... this is my teammate and friend, Nora Valkyrie."

"Salutations!"

...

Three days later and in walk in all four of the missing males, right into Team RWBY's dorm with all the eyes of their friends on them in clear surprise. They were tired and dirty beyond reason with bruises around their body. Neptune had small streaks of purple in his hair. Ren winced when someone bumped into his back. Sun groaned and Jaune sighed as his feet finally had the option to give up. Dust and grime litter their attire, almost making them impossible to distinguish out of a crowd. They move with no grace, crashing right into the nearest bed they can find—Weiss Schnee's bed.

"Hey!" They make no attempt to move and Weiss's anger only gets redirected. "And where have you four been? You've been missing for three days! Three days! Nora and Ruby have been worried sick! I hope your ridiculous, spur of the moment road trip to Mistral was worth it because while you four were doing Oum knows what, my home kingdom got under attacked by a new group of terrorist!"

All the guy's eyes widen and they look up to see Weiss pulling out a poster from a hidden compartment from her combat skirt. It's a roll for a newly delivered poster. And as she unrolls it, Sun, Neptune, Ren, and Jaune can't keep their mouths closed tight enough, holding their breath as Weiss disgustingly displayed the poster for them to see and compare right in front of their faces.

The Treacherous Quadruple! A big wanted sign was written underneath with the Schnee banner promising a lot of lien for any knowledge to the whereabouts of the infamous group. A group that almost looked like them, plus the awesome shades, which means there's no way those guys can be them. Not in their friends' eyes. Their clueless, misguided, blinded eyes.

Nope!

"They call themselves the Treacherous Quadruple," Blake wisely pointed out, poking the image of a strikingly familiar Monkey Faunus. "These four somehow managed to take on the might of the Atlas's military and make the White Fang look like a pack of simple girl scouts. Rumor has it they even stole a suitcase full of lien and rare Dust from them. It's been the talk all around Beacon and even Remnant. Here's one of the members, Monkey Fist. A Monkey Faunus dressed as a ninja."

Sun pretended the grin on the poster staring back at him was someone else. Anyone else. Please let this Dust-inducing, Aura weakening nightmare end already!

"And this knucklehead right here is Super Pervert," Weiss humphed, glad Neptune's nothing like the violet hair guy on the poster. "I don't know where they got their amazing strength, but they must be stopped! They simply cannot be allowed to pollute the world with their filth!"

The last two of the Treacherous Quadruple are left without an introduction, not needing one. Except no one told Ruby Rose that, and she's slapping the poster, hard.

"No one knows where they got their terrible strength!" Ruby shivered, glaring adorably at the smirking Sloth King. Her insides just boiled at the idea of meeting this guy and just bashing his dumb head in. "They were too powerful to be stopped! Someone needs to do something! And fast!"

"I agree." Weiss holds the poster next to Jaune's face with the D-Arc Knight right beside him. Obviously there's no correlation from Jaune and the D-Arc and his magical, cobalt shades. "Somehow these four managed to escape Atlas undetected. Who knows where they've went. They must be taken down. Right? These four troublemakers could be right underneath our noses and we would never know!"

Everyone but the men in the room nodded their heads. Nora's the only one who looks conflicted, casting an adoring look at the Sloth King poster. Her eyes betray her and she's looking between the Sloth King and Ren. Jaune, on the other hand, simply pretends nothing's wrong, casting a subtle, worried glance to both Sun and Neptune whose faces are practically pressed side-by-side by their evil counterparts. Neither Blake nor Weiss make the connections. Yang and Ruby are just as clueless. Pyrrha and Nora try to makes heads and tails of it and nothing works. And all is wrong with the world.

"I'm scared..." Neptune whispered to Sun and his friend simply shushed him.

...

Reaching their room after everyone—but the guys—cursed out the Treacherous Quadruple, Jaune and Ren prepare for the inevitable, not believing for a moment their lackluster disguise truly worked. Surely sunglasses are not enough of a disguise to fool their partners. Maybe Nora, but not Pyrrha, they know this. And based off the way she slowly closed the door with a small frown, they get ready for their impending doom. It's not like they're at fault here. Nora's the one who made the pancakes that trapped them in a maniacal rampage that ended with them attacking Atlas from a hijacked Bullhead. It was her concoction that left them in a state of unforgiving frenzy and made their blackout all the more gruesome. She did that to them.

 _They were the victims here!_

"So..." Pyrrha begins, turning her frown into a smile. Looks like the Aura overload didn't happen. "How was your sudden road trip? Poor Nora here was mad you didn't invite her."

"It isn't fair! How come Ren and Jaune get to do all the fun stuff?"

Jaune and Ren spare a second glance towards each other, blinking once in utter amazement before refocusing their sharp glares back at their counterparts. Clearly, shades really were all the disguise a person needed to blend into plain sight. Forget masks and capes! Glasses are where it's at. Yet, this did put them in a compromising predicament.

Should they come clean? Reveal to their friends the mayhem that happened in Mistral? Expose the perilous journey from Atlas to Vale? Like the fight with the bounty hunters or perhaps the military? Maybe Jaune should talk about how he fought Winter Schnee on top of a burning Bullhead as they tried to escape Atlas with said stolen Bullhead. Heck! There are still streaks of purple in Neptune's hair! Even Ren didn't come out of this unscathed. The only positive thing that came out of the entire, heart wrenching, soul crushing, nightmare inducing experience was Jaune and Ren being able to keep their secrets, well, secret! And it was all thanks to a simple pair of shades that didn't even hide their facial structures, hair styles, or anything much for that mattered.

So... should they spill?

Nope!

That's another _story_ for another time.

Besides, Pyrrha and Nora really wanted to bring down the D-Arc Knight and the Sloth King. The look of determination in their eyes really frightened them. They had still been looking over their shoulders from the small pathway to Team RWBY's room to their own during the quick wall in between. Paranoia is not strong enough of a word to describe the three days they've had. Hell's awfully close, though.

"Fine!" Jaune says a little too quickly. Panicking, he points to Ren's shoulder. "Uh? Ren got a tattoo!"

Ren flips his angry glare over to Jaune. "What?!"

"What!" Nora screams in anger. She moves in, grabbing Ren's cloak from behind, already pulling the article off. "Oh! I see! I can't get a tattoo! But you can!"

Running off her abandonment anger as fuel, Nora reaches for Ren's clothing, and Ren has no time to warn her before the cloak's pulled off, alongside his black shirt, and her eyes widen once she spots the tattoo. She gasped a few times, not saying any words, and Pyrrha walks up behind her while Jaune slinks away to put away Crocea Mors. Meanwhile, Sir Scrabbles takes in the sight with piercing, emotionless eyes, feeling Nora's emotions all over the place until they eventually settle on unrestrained happiness.

Whatever sadness Nora felt from Ren ditching her and almost not eating her Dust Enhanced Goofy Good Delicious Pancakes, her words, not theirs, seemed to vanish without a trace as her eyes taken in every juicy, heartwarming details of the tattoo on Ren's back.

There's a Sloth King on his back, right centered between his shoulder blades and lean muscles, with an added cape and a crown. The king also owns a pancake castle with a moat drenched in high-grade syrup. It's all really delicious and makes the butterflies in her stomach soar. But what really got Nora's attention was the little personal touch of Ren putting her name in the syrup. It's clear as day and he even had the pancake castle made out of her favorite pancakes, making the tattoo all the sweeter.

"Do you like it?" Ren nervously asked for the first time. Even Jaune and Pyrrha are stumped. "I got it..." he sighed, casting a quick, merciless, death glare at Jaune before giving Nora his absolute attention. "I got it for you."

Taking a step back, Nora finally takes a second look at Ren, noticing the small change to his wardrobe. Beside the newest addition to his skin, Ren also picked up a pair of white pants with a new style of shoes—sandals really—where the toes are left to breathe and they reach partially up his leg. Matching his form fitting coal shirt and cloak, the outfit really did go together quite nicely. The Lore cloak still covered a huge portion of his body, including most of the newest additions to his attire, but the little changes can be seen. And the opened toed shoes did allow him more freedom and he loved them. That's all that really mattered in the end.

Plus, Nora could just eat Ren all up.

"Ah!" She runs up to him and tries to crush him in a death hug. His Lore cloak and natural strength prevent that, leading up to a normal level hug in the terms of Ren's choosing. Nora's still trying to squeeze the life out of him, but the effort's all in vain. She's still rewarded with a small smile, "I love it! I love it! Love it! Love! It!"

Watching from the sidelines, Sir Scrabbles peaks closely at the human female's sudden skyrocket level of attraction for the male human she already wanted. Apparently the male human's not so hopeless after all.

Pyrrha moves up to Jaune, smiling wistfully at her overcharged friend.

"So... Do I want to ask _how_ Ren ended up getting a tattoo, or why you didn't stop him?"

She could ask them all she wanted. Jaune, Neptune, Ren, and Sun all agreed to take their dirty secrets with them to their graves.

"I wouldn't if I was you."

There's no _reasoning_ behind it.

What happens in Atlas, stays in Atlas.

* * *

 **Author Notes: Violet** is another one-shot I wrote a while back and that story is connected to this one since Aura shards really do give the person consuming them enhanced strength and speed and stuff, and Nora's just crazy enough to cook them. I'm surprised no one and I mean _no one_ figured it out, there were so many clues in that little story and this one—except for the added line of Ren's cloak—that I was sadden when no one called me out on it.

Cover art: **Exvnir**


	18. Dove

**Disclaimer:** I own nothing of RWBY.

* * *

 **Dove**

 **By: Imyoshi**

Freedom—the ability to control one's Destiny.

Like everything in life, nothing's truly free, everything came with a price.

Be it narrow, steep, shallow, wide, large or small was up to the one holding the novelty of freedom in their hands, versus the person reaching out to claim said object for themselves.

And in a world where children fought wars because of other people's decisions, could the idea of freedom truly exist?

Rewinding back three days prior to the appearance of the Treacherous Quadruple, Pyrrha watched as her leader strolled out the Mess Hall, heading to their room for relaxation and Aura training after finishing his dinner. She had half a mind to follow his lead, loving the idea of kicking off her boots for some downtime. Part of her wanted to test out Caliburn's power further and she couldn't think of a better partner to practice with. She couldn't even recall the last time Jaune and her trained together. A spar would be nice.

Then her eyes follow Weiss as she promptly got up and followed Jaune with a brisk pace, probably to intercept him before he reached their room. Not to say Pyrrha didn't expect Weiss to confront and demand answers from her leader, Dust and all, she's just so surprised she didn't ask when they were eating or her for that matter. Probably had something to do with pride or whatnot, and the champion knew a thing or two about pride. The damn thing could make people do crazy things.

Roughly poking her steak with her fork, Pyrrha nicked a piece off and chewed the flavor meat tenderly; thoughtfully watching Ren feed Nora some chocolate dessert he had swiped. Off to the side, at a different table no less, Team RWBY, minus Weiss, talked about some outing to Vale they had planned. Pyrrha occasionally heard words mentioning fangs and clubs, but the champion couldn't really hear the exchange with the noise of the Mess Hall bouncing off every conceivable direction. She only knew about the outing because Jaune mentioned it offhandedly before he finished his meal.

Finished with her food with a thoughtful, she smiled over to Nora gulping down her dessert with Ren's piercing eyes showing hardly any emotion. To anyone else, except Team JNPR, no one would've noticed his pink eyes holding a bit more shine than usual. Not to say Ren's an emotionless wall, but the guy's like a book only a few selected people could read at any given moment. And what Pyrrha Nikos was reading within the subtext was the underline emotion of happiness.

Nora's a different story. One that couldn't be learned, only observed.

Draining her beverage, Pyrrha hummed for a bit, still feeling fantastic after her fight with Blake. But her amusement was cut short with the vibration of her scroll. The champion pulled out the device in record time, unable to hide her confusion when she discovered the message's from the Headmaster himself, who's asking for her to appear in his office after she's finished with her dinner.

"What's wrong, Pyrrha?"

Pyrrha tore her eyes away from her scroll to find them zeroing on Nora. The happy-trigger girl was smiling from across the table, traces of chocolate in both her teeth and cheeks with her elbows perched onto the wood. Ren's already wiping her cheeks by the time Pyrrha answered her question.

"I'm not sure. Headmaster Ozpin summoned me to his office. He wants to see me after I finish eating."

Ren's eyes betrayed no emotion, but Nora's a mood ring. "Oh! I wonder what he wants! Maybe you're in trouble? Hn? Did you steal anything? I didn't know you had a bad streak in you, Pyrrha! Who would've thought, our resident champion's a thief!"

"What?!" she cried with an outburst. "Don't be ridiculous! Of course I haven't stolen anything. And I'm not a thief. I'm as much as a thief as..." Pyrrha glanced around the Mess Hall and found that guy Mercury's eyes on her for a split-second before he glared away. Pushing that moment away, she subtly pointed to his minty-haired teammate. "That person over there."

Emerald Sustrai found herself sneezing all over Mercury Black. What rotten luck. Someone must be talking about her.

Nora wasn't satisfied. "Hmm... we'll chalk this one up as a maybe."

Pyrrha didn't know whether or not she should defend her honor, knowing it _was_ Nora of all people, so she glanced over to Ren instead. "If you will excuse me... the Headmaster has summoned me. Please don't let Nora break anything while I'm gone. We don't need Jaune to be stuck on cleanup duty."

"No problem." Ren did a simple wave as Pyrrha got up and left. He turned to see Nora glaring at him with all the fury she could muster with chocolate on her face. He ever so calmly wiped away the remaining desert, not fighting back his amused smirk. "You know... Pyrrha's got a point. Our leader's always cleaning up your messes."

"Oh, yea?" she challenged. "Prove it!"

"Well..." he recounted, using his fingers to list the times. "There was the time we followed your idea to follow our leader, which ended up a brawl between Pyrrha and him, or your stunt that caused us to switch weapons and made Jaune the laughing stock for that entire class. When you ate the Lore shard was a nasty one, and after he hid it away so something like that _wouldn't_ happen. I also know Jaune's not particularly fond of Sir Scrabbles. Then Jaune has to feed Sir Scrabbles Aura shards. Plus you like eating the Aura shards. Then there's you hiding all his stuff. And who could forgot all the times you poked him with a fork."

"No one asked you!"

Smiling softly at Nora's blushing cheeks and crossed arms, Ren dabbed his finger on the remaining chocolate and _booped_ her on the nose. He licked the remaining chocolate off his finger, barely missing her reddening cheeks. "Hn? That's good. I think I'll get some for myself and a salad. I feel like treating myself today."

Excusing himself from the table, she flicked the remaining chocolate off her nose and tasted the sugary substance stuck to her finger, pondering over Ren's words. Now that she thought about it, the bomber did cause a lot of problems for her Fearless Leader. Maybe the next time she saw him she'd ask if everything's alright. Only seemed fair since she knew Jaune-Jaune would do the same. He's kind like that. But for now, Nora's mind was focused elsewhere, half on the retreating Ren, and the other half on the idea of playing with Sir Scrabbles. A battle stirred in her soul as she wondered which side to seek out.

By the time Ren returned back from grabbing his second meal, Nora's gone. He made sure to blink a few times, just to make sure he's not seeing some illusion, only to learn she's truly not there anymore.

Looking across the Mess Hall and finding no sign of her, he easily shrugged his shoulders with no clear interest on pressing the matter. Whelp, he tried his best to stop Nora. Figuring it's already too late to catch her now and stop whatever mayhem she may be causing—if she's causing mayhem—he settled down onto the table to tackle his salad and rare sugary delight.

In the grand scheme of things, Pyrrha should've known better. Nora Valkyrie couldn't be stopped.

Only pushed.

...

Bouncing into her room, Nora threw the door open with too much force, rattling the walls around her. She slipped in before shutting the door with an equal amount of force, scanning for her precious mass of evil and adorableness. And she found Sir Scrabbles sleeping between Ren's sheets, apparently undeterred from Nora's impressive entrance. Expressed a lot about how Sir Scrabbles was already used to her antics.

Running forward, she slid down onto the carpet, leaning over Ren's bed to come face-to-face with the sloth Grimm. Their noses were practically touching, Eskimo kisses and such, and the sloth tiredly opened its eyes to stare at the human female who'd awoken it from its slumber, _again_. Not surprisingly enough, Sir Scrabbles tried to fall back into dreamland, but Nora's having none of that.

Hugging the Grimm tight, she bounced onto Ren's bed. "Uh-uh! You've been sleeping all day, Sir Scrabbles! Stop being a lazy butt! It's time to wake up and hug the sunshine!" The Grimm despised sunshine. "Aw! What? You don't want to play with me?"

The sloth Grimm blinked innocently into the hug, feeling something akin to guilt. An ironic emotion for a Grimm to have, but considering the humans that were harboring it, well, in better terms, normal and natural have long been thrown out the window. Not to say the slothful Grimm wanted to play, because it preferred sleeping, but denying this powerhouse of a female might prove fatal to his health. The leader of their pack was strong, but the cold, silent one the king had entrusted power to was far more susceptible to emotional outrage. Which meant hurting the female's feelings was _not an option_.

Bringing its arms up, Sir Scrabbles hugged her neck, producing a cute _squeal_ from the crazy girl. "Ha! I knew you wanted to play! How does airplane sound?" Sir Scrabble knew it didn't have the _freedom_ to deny her request. They could watch paint dry for all it cared. "Yup-yup! Airplane sounds perfect! I mean... look at those arms! They're perfect!"

Lying down on Ren's bed with her feet up, she immediately began tossing Sir Scrabbles into the air, catching the tiny sloth Grimm moments before it crashed into her chest, at least most of the time she did. Occasionally, Nora missed and Sir Scrabbles ended up in various positions, mostly covering her eyes with its body splashed across her forehead. Not to say it bothered the auburn girl, but Sir Scrabbles was not as strong as she was. Where she felt joy and laughter, the Grimm felt pain and misery, again, perplexing for a Grimm and a human to have in the same room, but it's better than the alternative of her kind trying to end its life and vice-versa.

Strange how two opposing forces could find compromise when violence was subtracted from the equation? A little love and happiness really could go a long way.

Enjoying the game they played for who knew how long, Sir Scrabbles suddenly perked up a little, feeling emotions of heavy doubt and sadness creeping up on it from outside the door. Alongside those emotions were even more conflicting enigmas, including the presence of Aura in pain. Very rarely did a Grimm come in contact with Aura in pain since the anomaly usually happened when a human was dying. By then the Grimm normally finished off the human, but this Aura was completely different. The usual emotions when a human was dying were missing and the Grimm sensed no panic.

Something's completely off here.

Feeling the sensation, the conflicting troubles remain outside the door for quite a while before in walked in Jaune Arc, emotions heavy in directionless guilt. Normally, the leader did a good job at hiding away troubling emotions, but this time he's not attempting to guard his thoughts. And Sir Scrabbles's wasn't the only one to notice and call him out on it.

"Hey, Jaune-Jaune!" Nora laughed, hugging Sir Scrabbles tight in a loving embrace. Jaune still didn't know how she could trust a Grimm so freely. "Whatcha up to?"

The Grimm felt the leader's doubtful emotions all over him. And they're all directed at it. They're carefully shielding away from the female, but his emotions were too heavy to completely hide from a creature of darkness.

"I'm going to practice on my Aura and Lore for a bit." Jaune rubbed his hair and looked around the room. "Where's Ren and Pyrrha?"

Nora pulled on Sir Scrabbles tighter, resting her chin on top of the Grimm's soft head. "I don't know. I think Pyrrha went to go study for Professor Port's test next week or maybe I think she said something about the Headmaster calling her. She's smart like that. Ren went to go eat more of his gross health food."

Nora noticed her leader pausing, thinking of the many _what if_ scenarios he should follow and ignore. It's a habit she noticed he'd picked up. Something was troubling him that much she knew. Be it Pyrrha, Ren, her or none of the above didn't really mattered. All she cared about was helping her Fearless Leader. They needed him to be in tip-top shape for the tournament. Jaune-Jaune's no good all mopey and closed off.

What a complicated problem to deal with. Why couldn't hugs and brute strength solve all the problems she's forced to tackle?

Watching him reach for his Aura notebook, she sat straighter on Ren's bed, hugging the Grimm firmly. Didn't take a genius to figure out her leader had made a new discovery with Aura, not with the way his eyes narrowed in concentration, but he's normally more vocal when he learned something new. He's like a kid in a Dust shop. To see him so quiet raised some red alerts in her head. By the way he gripped his pencil alone spoke volumes of the troubles going on in his mind. Why he didn't ask for her help really did put her role into question. Then again, maybe Jaune preferred Ren's input.

Ren always did have a way with words.

"What's wrong, Fearless Leader?" Jaune's pencil broke upon the paper of the notebook and he's about to ask how she knew something was wrong, but Nora only hugged Sir Scrabbles firmer. "You're usually so happy whenever you write in that boring diary of yours."

Jaune looked surprise that she managed to call him out on his funk. Kind of made her wonder what he came to expect from her. But that didn't matter anymore. Today's the day she's going to change that! And she did just that, listening to Jaune spew on about some weird girl with an even weirder Aura. And honestly, Nora's not too sure on what to say. Pressing him with questions rather than suggestions didn't really help. It did force her leader to think, but Nora's not too sure she wanted him to get a headache.

Eventually, through some small miracle, she managed to make it through the conversation. He made her a quick sum of Aura shards for Sir Scrabbles to eat before heading off to Emerald Forest. The entire conversation had helped her realize one thing about herself. Helping people was so hard!

No wonder she let Ren do all the work.

...

The elevator ride up to Headmaster Ozpin's office was, for a lack of a better word, _heavy_. Pyrrha's heart felt constricted and the air in her lungs left sooner that she liked. Logically, there's nothing to be worried about. Instinctively, there's a deep, troubling pressure weighing down on her soul. Call it warrior's intuition, but something felt strangely off the higher the elevator moved up. And Pyrrha Nikos definitely realized this the moment she stepped out the elevator and into Ozpin's office with Professor Goodwitch and a man wearing military garbs standing at attention. For some reason, she knew she'd seen the military man from somewhere before.

"Please, Miss Nikos." Ozpin drummed, sitting easily in his chair. Professor Goodwitch and the other man simply stood. "Take a seat. We've much to discuss. And you might want to sit down for some of it." The second she obliged, it felt like a noose was tying around her neck. She's forced to settle down the urge to gulp. Yet, none of it made sense. Maybe she would be more relaxed without the others around, and Ozpin must've realized this as he openly gestured to military man beside her. "But first, pleasantries are in order."

"Hello, Miss Nikos, my name's James Ironwood. It's a pleasure to meet you." Now Pyrrha recognized this man! He's the head of the Atlas's military.

"And you know Professor Goodwitch." Ozpin added, lacing his fingers together.

Pyrrha ignore her, finding everything not for her liking. She wanted answers. "Professor, if you don't mind me asking, why have you called me here?"

Leaning back into his chair, Ozpin took out a scroll and played a video on it. "I've watched footage of your talents displayed today when you fought Miss Belladonna. And I must admit, Miss Nikos, you've improved remarkably well these past few months. Far more than I've anticipated." He clicked off the footage and grew an amused smile. "Tell me, what's your favorite fairy tale?"

Confused from the sudden questioned, Pyrrha lightly frowned. "I'm sorry?"

"Fairy tales, stories from your childhood. Surely you must have a favorite. Everyone does."

Pyrrha's not sure what he's asking. "Well, I like a few of them. Like the one with The Girl Trapped in the Tower, The Prisoner's Selfless Act, The Wicked Witch of the West, Luck's Misfortune, and The Fool's Struggle."

Ozpin smiled at one of the fairy tales, knowing some better than others. "What about The Story of the Seasons?"

Pyrrha knew that story like the back of her hand, it even made her smile a bit, but she found that feeling of doom encircling around her. Perhaps this was how her leader must've felt when Nora's Aura was all but gone. Being able to sense the demise of another must take a toll on a person's psyche. And she knew she wasn't always this apprehensive, but after everything that happened to her, she's learned to look past the black and white of the world and step into the grey area—the _silver_.

Not everything was as it appeared.

Playing along, Pyrrha recounted bits and pieces of what she knew, determined to only give half-truths. Something she picked up from both Jaune and Ren. "I know of it. It's a story of a callous old man, who refused to leave his home, and is visited by four traveling sisters. Each one of them bears a gift of knowledge and wisdom onto the old man, slowly opening up his heart to the beauty of nature. They give the old man purpose." Pyrrha smiled a little. "In return for their kindness, the man grants the maidens incredible powers, so that they may continue to help others all over the world. They graciously accept, and promise to share their gifts with the people of Remnant 'til the end of days. Winter, Spring, Summer, and Fall; the Four Maidens."

It seemed like Ozpin was mildly disappointed in her answer, but he remained faithful to his smile. "You seem rather fond of that little tale."

"My mother used to tell me that story every night when I was just a little girl."

Ozpin allowed the witty retort to die on his tongue as he settled more into his chair. Whatever smile he had was gone, only to be replaced with a questioning scowl. "How would you react if I told you that fairy tale was true?"

Honestly, she wouldn't be too surprised. She'd seen a lot of things in the past few months. Saying the idea of impossibility existed in Remnant was a fool's dream. Just ask Sir Scrabbles sleeping in their room. Such things didn't freak out or make the champion question the possibilities anymore. Maybe if her leader had stayed a bumbling fool for a little while longer, her perception on what's real or fake wouldn't be so crossed, which, again had to do with walking the silver line of life.

Still, she's a little bit surprised. "I beg your pardon?"

"What if I told you that there were four maidens existing in this world that could wield such tremendous power, without the aid of Dust or Semblances?"

Pyrrha's wondering what Ozpin would think if she told him about Lore. Such things didn't throw her off balance. "If it's neither Dust nor a Semblance... then what other power are you talking about, Headmaster?"

Ozpin smiled again, not missing the subtle movements of his friends behind Pyrrha. "Magic, Miss Nikos. Magic."

Pyrrha's slightly stunned, trying to piece everything together with puzzles pieces that just didn't belong together. She's lucky James intervened. "I wouldn't worry too much if I was you; learning about the existence of magic takes some time to get used to."

Tearing her glare away from James, Pyrrha locked eyes again with Professor Ozpin, getting slightly defensive. That gut feeling from earlier resurfaced, and she wanted nothing more than to get back to her team. Whatever Ozpin wanted churned parts of her soul.

"You're serious?" Ozpin's face betrayed no mockery. "If you're not joking... then why are you telling me this? What is your reason, Professor Oz?"

Coughing into his hand, Ozpin got up from his chair and moved over to Glynda. "To be honest, we weren't going to ask you of this until during the Vytal Festival, but your recent improvements have pushed our plans ahead of schedule. Not to worry, this is a good thing." He hummed. "To make it brief, we believe you're the next in line to receive the Fall Maiden's powers."

Pyrrha didn't bother asking about the _we_ part, eyes instantly centered on the ding of the nearby elevator door. A moment later in walked a girl Pyrrha had never seen before. Her hair resembled the same shade of her friend Nora, but her style of clothing fell more into Ren's color palette—minus the cloak. Adding in her bright and sunny smile, she felt that something's wrong about her. Her Semblance came to life the moment she took a closer step into Ozpin's office—a habit she'd picked up after learning to control the iron in blood. Becoming more in tuned with her Semblance allowed her to always sense nearby metals. And there's metal all around her. Literally! Pyrrha felt nothing else but metal coming from this girl.

Was this how Jaune felt when he discovered her Semblance the first time, lost and confused? Perhaps this was how her leader felt when he's actively using Space or Outer Space. All the energetic Auras around him must push him over the edge from time-to-time. What a strange occurrence to live by.

The new girl did a big wave and moved closer to Pyrrha. "Salutations, Miss Nikos! My name is Penny Polendina! It's an honor to meet you!" Pyrrha fought the urge to squint her eyes, noting the heavy iron all over her body. "You must be so excited to be the next chosen Fall Maiden?!"

Before Pyrrha could ask who this girl was, James was beating her to the punch. "Penny..." he sighed, hiding the barest of smiles for all to see. "I'm glad you got my message. For a minute there, I was worried. You didn't respond as fast as you normally do."

Penny blushed, poking her fingers together. "Sorry, General Ironwood, I was talking to my old friends. I hadn't seen them in a while... and..."

James held out his hand, fully understanding Penny's plight. Personally, he's not too thrilled with Penny mingling with other people, but he's not mad. "It's alright... just next time tell me in advance." Penny's face brightened up and she did a tiny salute for the General.

It's all so playful that the champion almost fell into a false sense of security. "There must be some mistake?" she questioned a moment later. She'd ignore Penny for now. "I can't possibly be in line to receive these powers. I just learned about their truth right now."

Ozpin grabbed Pyrrha by the shoulder. "And right there is another reason you might be the next in line. Not only are you talented and kind-hearted, but you're also humble. If not you... then who else? Who can we trust to bestow these powers to?"

Pyrrha flicked her attention to Penny and everyone's just staring at the champion. It's enough to make that humbleness resurface. "I mean... Penny does know about the Maiden Powers already. Why can't she be the next one in line?" Focusing over the integrity of the question, she glared. "Well?"

Not to say she's not appreciative of being offered power, but the last time someone got a whole new spec of power, it almost ended up with her dead. Lore's great and all, and her leader's shown its capabilities more times than naught. But that very same power almost killed Nora. Call her crazy if she thought being a little cautious was foolish.

Waiting for an answer, Glynda delivered with a fold of her arms, glaring an icy hue at the General. "We've already gone this far... might as well, James. What's one more secret?"

James glared right back, but lost his bravo very quickly. He gestured his hand over to a nervous Penny. "To answer your question, Penny's a robot. She wasn't born, but made in a lab. She's the first synthetic entity to be capable of generating an Aura. We aren't sure if her synthetic body can accept the Maiden Powers. And it's too big of a chance to take if something were to go wrong."

Pyrrha allowed her eyes to widen. A robot? That explained the iron oddity. Even stranger was Penny's ability to generate her own Aura. Now that's something her leader would undeniably take acute interest in, although, the idea of a robot wielding Aura left a bitter taste on her soul. She found it wrong for all the right reasons. Stuffing life into a machine? No. No! It's not right. Not at all!

Wait a minute? "What do you mean accept?" Pyrrha looked over to Ozpin. "How does someone actually gain the Maiden Powers? What makes you so sure that I'm to receive them?"

Glynda smiled at Pyrrha's clever line of questions. Whatever nervousness Pyrrha came with have appeared to have all but vanished. At first, the combat professor didn't know how the champion would fare, but she's doing oddly well. Almost like she's used to being around the unknown, more than they give her credit for at the very least.

Allowing the soft lull of the gears to tick systematically, Ozpin eventually moved away from Pyrrha and marched toward the elevator. James, Penny and Glynda followed, leaving just enough space for Pyrrha to squeeze in. In there he held out his hand and invited her in.

"Because we are the protectors of the world... and we need your help. Please, Pyrrha Nikos, comes with us. We'll show you what we mean."

...

The elevator was an uncomfortable one for Pyrrha. The silence from the adults was unnerving, and Penny's creepy, robotic smile—not that she knew Penny was a robot, all her awkward gestures were impossible _not_ to compare—wasn't any help at all. In fact, her smile unnerved her more than the adult's silence. All they needed was a sarcastic person to finish of this secret group of theirs.

Curiosity eventually won her over. "Where are we going?"

"The vault. Under the school." Ozpin answered. Secretly he's glad Pyrrha chose to hear them out. He's also secretly glad Professor Port finally decided to get rid of that ridiculous room of his.

Pyrrha needed not to ask again as the doors _dinged_ open. Outside the steel walls was a green lit passage way. The space within the hallway was massive; Pyrrha would even compare the architectural marvel to be wide and large enough to house the entire academy. Then again, the atmosphere around her was chilly to the bone. It was funny enough that none of the adults found it chilly, and they promptly move forward with Penny remaining behind. It appeared like Glynda Goodwitch wanted to stay, but she didn't.

Stepping out the elevator, Pyrrha walked forward with powerful, slow steps. Beside her was Penny. She's tagging along, smiling that same smile of hers. Painstakingly enough for Pyrrha, it's the robot that let her feelings out first.

"You must be so astounded from all this!"

"More like confused." Pyrrha admitted. "I still have many questions. But mostly I want to know why me? Why am I next in line to receive the Maiden Powers?"

Penny had no problem revealing the secret to her. "General Ironwood told me the Maiden Powers have been around for a really, really long time. The powers are like nature! They change constantly! No two seasons are alike! Which means no person can have the same powers twice. So the powers move onto some new person when the old person dies. Neat, huh?"

Their definitions on neat were comparably different. "And what? Do the powers choose their next host? Is there some ritual I must do?"

This time Glynda stepped in, matching her pace with Pyrrha's. "Not exactly. At first, the only thing that was certain was that the powers were specifically passed on to young women. But as time went on, it was discovered that the selection process was much more... intimate."

Pyrrha frowned. "Intimate? How so?"

"To put it simply, when a Maiden dies, the last person they were thinking of is given the powers."

"But not if it's some boy or bag of bones." Penny added. "Nope! If that happens, then the Maiden Powers find a new host at random. Poor General Ironwood is still looking for the Winter Maiden. He loses sleep on it sometimes."

"Penny..." James growled. Penny simply giggled and moved forward to catch up with the General.

Putting the pieces together, Pyrrha rubbed her chin, thinking clearly. "And you're telling me all this because I improved?"

Ozpin picked up on her skepticism. "Not just improved, but exceeded our expectations. To be frank, we had originally planned to reveal this all to you after your graduation. However, times are changing. War is coming. And we're running out of time. We were going to wait a little longer before mentioning it, but this is even better. At least now we have some time to plan our next move."

Pyrrha heard the general gist of all that, but one word kept replaying itself over and over again in her mind. "War? But we're in a time of peace?"

Ironwood sighed. "And that peace won't last long. Tensions are getting high and the Grimm's numbers are increasing. But we'll explain more on it later. For now just know this, for the first time in history, part of the Maiden's Powers have been stolen. Someone attacked the Fall Maiden."

Pyrrha's questions continue to grow, but they're all halted when they reach some pod like machine that's housing a sleeping individual inside. Electricity bounced off the walls, humming a maddening tune for all to hear. None of that compared to the girl trapped inside, sleeping with a burn scar all over her left eye and most of her face. She's tannish in both color and hair, lacking any formal clothing except for the bare casual.

Touching the glass, Pyrrha sighed. "This is her, isn't it? The Fall Maiden?"

General Ironwood stepped forward, peering through the glass. "Her name's Amber. For now her condition's stable, but even Atlas's most state of the art technology can only do so much."

The meaning's clear. "And you're not sure if the powers will transfer to the next host or bounce back to her assailant."

"Whoa!" Penny grinned, leaning within General Ironwood's person bubble. "She's super smart!"

James fought back a smirk. Pyrrha really was a perfect candidate for the powers. "It is the first time we've seen the power split up before, so yes, that is a factor we've been dreading over. We're not sure what will happen."

"And that would be terrible." Professor Goodwitch finished, pushing her glasses up.

Drawing her hand down on the glass, Pyrrha had a sudden bout of anger before it washed away just as fast. It's no secret why this was all kept from the public eye. Pyrrha knew a thing or two about keeping secrets. This was no different, just a larger scale if anything, but still a secret nonetheless. Comparing this one to her team's secret brought everything into perspective. When someone had a great amount of power that anyone could learn, well, best not to let any one person get their hands on it. Trust was so hard to come by in this world full of monsters and beasts.

Pyrrha Nikos couldn't even imagine the few that had actually garnered the power they sought after. She didn't even want to imagine someone getting their hands on Jaune's Aura notebook. To her leader it's just notes he collected over his study on Aura. To the rest of Team JNPR, they all know it's so much more than that. It's a guide to unimaginable power. Just look how far Lie Ren managed to come from dwelling into the pages. And he's only able to scratch the surface of Aura control.

Who knew what'd happen if someone with a more in-depth affinity to Aura control came along. Grasping the power of Aura and Lore, even by the skin of their teeth, could prove disastrous. Pyrrha's personally witnessed and challenged Jaune's Aura weapons. Not exactly a power to be taken lightly.

Everyone's just lucky Jaune came from a family of heroes.

Removing her hand away from the glass, Pyrrha quickly wondered if Jaune's Aura shards could help Amber, but tossed away the thought. Now's not the time for such oddities and what ifs, now's the time to be questioning her next move, knowing full well what Ozpin wanted from her. Besides, if Amber couldn't be saved from state of the art technology from Atlas, then how far could Jaune's Aura shards possibly reach?

Taking a deep breath, Pyrrha backed away from the glass coffin, glaring at Ozpin evenly. "Can I have some time to think about it?"

Ozpin frowned, but nodded anyways. "Fair enough. We still have a fair amount of time before you have to make your decision. But we need it after your first mission is over. No later than that."

Pyrrha counted the days in her head, eyes gasping as she finished. "But, sir, that's only a little over a week away!" And the tournament's three weeks away. She didn't have time to worry about other problems! Not with her leader's future on the line! "A little more time would be nice."

"I know... I'm sorry to put this burden on you." Ozpin really was. "But even if we're ahead of schedule, we're still running out of time. Her attacker could be coming to claim the Maiden Powers any day now."

"She can already be here." Glynda added distastefully.

Pausing, Pyrrha glanced over to the comatose Amber, tilting her head questionably at the girl. "I forgot to ask, how were you going to transfer the powers over to me? If what you were saying was true, then I don't see how you were possibly going to accomplish such a feat."

Ironwood stepped forward and pointed at the unoccupied machine next to Amber's. "For the past few years, Atlas has been studying Aura from a more scientific standpoint; how it works, what's it made of, how it can be used. We've made... significant strides. And we believe we've found a way to capture it."

"And cram it into a machine." Glynda glared, subtly glancing over to Penny.

Pyrrha shared in the sentiment but must chose her words carefully with Penny around. "That's... odd."

Ironwood shrugged. "Desperate times calls for desperate measures. We know we can't transfer Amber's powers over to you, but we can give you her Aura. The only downside is we don't know what the outcome would be if we merged her Aura with yours."

Taking all the Aura knowledge into account, Pyrrha based her next response on the General's answer. "How long has Atlas been studying the effects of Aura?"

"Roughly six years." Frowning, Pyrrha glared back to the glass coffin, not verbally speaking her mind.

Six years and this was how far they've gotten? Not to brag, but Pyrrha knew her leader could've done a better job that some damn Aura scientist. Jaune already figured out a way to transfer Aura to a useless Dust shard, all of which drained little of his time compared to the span of six years. In essence, knowledge of Aura between Atlas's scientists and her Fearless Leader was a gap wider than the ocean. The champion would even go as far as to say _pathetic_.

And they wanted her to trust her life with them?

When it came down to it, Pyrrha didn't like those odds. Selfish or not, she rather be her than somebody else. It's human nature to want to survive. Different outcomes and different aftereffects meant nothing. In the end, this was no different. In order to maintain peace and balance, the needs of the many outweighed the needs of the few, but she's Pyrrha Nikos! She didn't give up.

"I still need time."

Ironwood didn't say anything else on the matter, choosing to redirect his attention elsewhere. "I believe I don't need to tell you that everything we've discussed that goes down around here is confidential." Pyrrha nodded. "And if you would, do keep Penny's origins a secret, Miss Nikos. Now if you would excuse us, we have matters to attend to. Come along, Penny."

Penny flashed over to Pyrrha, shaking her hand. "It was nice meeting you, Miss Nikos!"

"Please." Pyrrha coughed. "Just call me Pyrrha."

Penny found Pyrrha's awkwardness funny. It reminded her of someone else she's run into. "You know! I met your leader and partner not too long ago, Pyrrha. And you talk just like him! He's very nice! I can't wait to see how all your training pays off with him!"

Blinking, Pyrrha stopped the handshake momentarily, allowing her eyes sharpen on the robot before her. Penny already met Jaune? Then maybe he knew something about all this. A likely chance he didn't, but the odds were looking up. A robot with Aura? How could her leader not pick on that? If, of course, there's something to pick up at all, but something in her guts said luck's on her side.

Pyrrha couldn't even ask her how she already ran into Jaune because Penny's already running off to catch up with General Ironwood.

Catching her nerves, she felt the eyes of both Professor Goodwitch and Professor Ozpin on the back of her neck. Her boots click loudly on the metal floor as she turned to confront the professors. Their faces betray no emotion, but Pyrrha still saw the anxiety from Professor Goodwitch's posture. Their talk was clearly far from over.

"Training?" Ozpin mussed, sorely missing his coffee mug.

Pyrrha pouted, knowing the deal her leader's under with the Headmaster. "For the upcoming Vytal Tournament. We're going to win."

Ozpin's personally amused. "You do how—!"

"He forged his transcripts? I know." Pyrrha waved off with Glynda Goodwitch widening her eyes.

Ozpin found her confidence and loyalty in Jaune impressive. "And you still follow him, interesting?" she glared at her Headmaster, not liking what he's thinking. "Tell me; how certain are you sure that Jaune Arc will win the free-for-all?"

Like she's told Jaune herself. "I believe in him completely."

Ozpin smirked, finding Glynda's earlier analysis all the much sweeter. It seemed like Glynda wasn't exaggerating about Team JNPR's dynamic. An odd predicament, but it did setup the next part of their teacher's wager. Such loyalty was hard to find these days. A problem the Headmaster saw in even the most experienced of teams.

"Good, that's perfectly good, Miss Nikos. This just brings us to our last little predicament, your upcoming team mission. Originally, Team JNPR was going to be assigned Professor Peach for your mission..." Ozpin glanced over to Glynda. "However, it seems someone else has decided to govern over your mission... personally."

...

Walking back to her team's dorm room, Pyrrha wanted nothing more than to confront Jaune, silently hopping her leader picked up on anything strange with Penny. She may have _sworn_ to not reveal any of the secrets she learned, but if she could nudge her leader in the right direction, then that technically wouldn't be breaking her promise.

Curiously enough, when she learned that Professor Goodwitch was going to be accompanying them on their first mission, Pyrrha had profoundly wondered why. She didn't get to ask. The Headmaster and Headmistress of the school's time had been cut short. All she did know was that Professor Goodwitch believed in her team—whatever that meant—and their mission would be pushed early by the span of a week. This meant they left the first coming Monday before returning back just as the dance was scheduled to occur.

Ozpin had cleverly prepared a lie for any possible teams asking why Team JNPR left a little earlier. Being chosen by Vale to compete in the Vytal Tournament meant their team needed more time to train and not worry about missions, whereas the other chosen teams had less promise to live up to. Not a perfect lie by any means, but it'd probably get the job done regardless. Who's going to question Ozpin?

As she passed by open windows, Pyrrha couldn't help but notice how late the day had gotten. The sun's practically set already. Darkness should take over within the hour. How long she spent with the Headmasters was anyone's guess. All she knew was that her bed sounded like the best place in world.

"I hope we aren't pressuring you, Pyrrha?" Pyrrha sighed, unable to fault Penny's presence.

Once she had stepped out of the elevator earlier, Penny was there to greet her without General Ironwood in sight. The synthetic android wanted to hang out as she so put it. Pyrrha had a sneaking suspicion Penny's really here to prevent her from spilling secrets and to keep tabs on her. Not to say she's surprised, but the lack of trust was impossible to ignore.

"No..." Pyrrha answered. "No... it's just a lot to think about. There's so much to consider."

Turning into her hall, she allowed her eyes to widen a fraction from the cracks found on her team's wall. She found it sad she'd come to expect something like this whenever she ventured back to her dorm. The culprit's clear as day the moment she stepped into their room, looking all positively guilty and immensely confused. As if her plan had fallen apart at the seams.

"Nora?"

"Yes, Pyrrha?"

"What happened?"

Poor Nora looked completely lost. "I... I don't know. One minute they were eating the pancakes I made and the next second they're devouring everything like starved people. Then out of nowhere, Sun has this great idea of going on a guy's only road trip... and they just left without me."

Checking the damage done to their dorm room, the champion leveled down to expect the plates of syrup stained evidence. They're empty, not a morsel left to consume or share. Her train eyes then zero in on the broken door hinges, like something or _someone_ simply couldn't wait to get out of their room and just had to leave in a hurry. There's no other two ways about it. Nope!

Studying Nora's story, Pyrrha tilted her head at the missing items she noticed gone. The guys didn't take anything, except for the pile of forgotten sunglasses Nora had stashed away, and one of Blake's questionable ninja outfits she kept hidden in their closet, thinking they didn't know of its existence. But what's even stranger was another precious but forgotten object that had been taken as well.

"I wonder why Jaune would take Crocea Mors with him or why they would leave their scrolls behind." Pyrrha's eyes land on the spotless plates. "Nora... what were in those pancakes you made?"

The person in question timidly pushed her fingers together. "... Flour, sugar, baking powered, salt and love?" Pyrrha's eyes narrowed, waiting for the obvious more. "Maybe even some of Jaune-Jaune's rock candies. Oh! And some chocolate chips!"

Pyrrha opened her mouth and then closed it, wondering what the implications of cooked Aura shards could have on a person. They're packed loaded with Aura from her leader, and his Aura alone was on a different level compared to the vast majority of everyone. Even a shard filled with one Supernova could give a person a much needed boost of strength and power. Least not forget Jaune's high reserves of Aura. If he had wasted all his Aura making those, then Pyrrha couldn't imagine the aftereffect! Nora already proved there was such a thing as Aura overload—a _hangover_ practically!

To think Nora just gave those four foods that granted immeasurable strength but at unknown consequences. Never mind poking at Nora's cooking skills. Pyrrha knew what she could do to a kitchen with just a mixer and some flour. "This can't end well."

Nora looked over to Pyrrha, wondering for a second where she's been all day, then her eyes zero in on the person standing just outside their broken door. Her smile's bright and she waved almost robotically at her, never breaking the façade even when Nora tugged on Pyrrha's shoulder.

"Pyrrha? Who's that?"

Looking over to her new friend, Pyrrha breathed in deeply before addressing the question with trained hospitality, already forgetting about the problem at hand. This one's far more important that the guy's sudden road trip, which she's not suspiciously jealous of as well. "This... this is Penny, Penny Polendina... my new _friend_. I met her some time during my meeting with the Headmaster. And Penny... this is my teammate and friend, Nora Valkyrie."

"Salutations!"

There's a quick flash of surprise passing by Nora's eyes before it's gone. Then the sugary girl was all smiles and sunshine, running up to Penny to meet her. "Hello! I'm Nora! And I love your bow! What's your favorite colors?"

Penny grinned, grabbing her bow. "Pink and green!"

Nora grabbed Penny by the shoulder, eyes deviously sparked. "Oh! I like you! We're going to be the bestest of friends!"

Penny opened her mouth and then closed, tilting her head in confusion. "Friend Nora, bestest is not a word."

"That's just how amazing friends we are!" Nora paused, pouting her lip. "Do you like board games?"

Penny and Nora immediately hit it off—not like Pyrrha didn't expect anything different. They're equally loud and adventurous, although for different reasons. Nora's just naturally like that. Penny's a machine learning to act like a human as far as the champion could tell. The novelty behind Penny had yet to settle in for Pyrrha. With the Maiden Powers and her leader's sudden absence overclouding her current judgment, she had very little time to worry over Nora teaching Penny all the weird things about boys.

Glaring at the half-empty room, Pyrrha threw her head back in annoyance. Perfect. Just perfect! Who knew how long the effects of Nora's pancakes would have on the guys. The invincible girl couldn't just go and find them either. Without their scrolls they could be anywhere. She wouldn't know where to even begin looking for super-charged Huntsmen. They could be half way to Atlas for all she knew!

Sitting on Jaune's bed, she threw a worried glance at Sir Scrabbles hiding beneath Ren's bed. Unlike Jaune, she didn't mind the Grimm too much, knowing the little guy was relatively harmless. Nora's constant cuddling and hugs make sure of that. Didn't mean she didn't get where her leader's coming from. She understood completely. And it seemed Nora was content to keeping Sir Scrabbles a secret from Penny, making no move to grab her adorable Grimm.

Sliding her hand back, Pyrrha's fingers bumped into a paper notebook and she instantly knew what her fingers had touched—Jaune's Aura notebook—the very same notebook hidden beneath his pillow, which prompted a small smile from the blood bender.

Such a terrible hiding place. It's a miracle no one else found it.

Grabbing the notebook, she's tempted to open it up and look for any new notes her leader's written on Penny, considering the robotic girl did mention she bumped into her leader. She's not Ren. She hadn't read this thing front to back, hardly ever having any interaction with it, but any possible notes on Penny were too alluring to simply pass up. Yet, once again, Destiny had tortured her, making the action an impossible one with the target of her focus sitting five feet away, on Ren's bed no less, playing the Dust Cane board game with a peeving Nora.

"This isn't fair!" Nora whined, watching as Penny thrashed her at every turn. "You're getting all the lucky dice rolls! Who gets an eleven four times in a row? That just doesn't happen!"

Penny giggled. "I'm sorry, friend Nora, I guess I'm just lucky?" _Hiccup_! "Or maybe I just know how to throw the dice well. Probability is all math based, and knowing how to toss the dice in the right angle can improve—!"

"Gah!" Nora poked. She plucked the dice out of Penny's hand. "I hate math. Give me those darn dice, I'll show you probability! Watch as I roll a twelve!"

Having the difficult job of deciding whether to smile or frown at Nora interacting with Penny, especially after Nora rolled snake eyes, Pyrrha tucked the notebook back under Jaune's pillow, finding it ironic that there's no better hiding place in sight. Really expressed a lot about how bare their room really was.

By the time Penny finally left, Pyrrha's too tired to keep her eyes open anymore. Not to mention she's worried sick about Jaune's and Ren's disappearance. They still haven't returned back from their surprise road trip. Sure, that might've been the Aura shards mixed with Nora's cooking talking, but part of Pyrrha believed Jaune and Ren actually wanted to spend some time with the opposite sex. She couldn't recall the last time Ren and Jaune bonded with any other males. Team RWBY certainly didn't help with that problem. And guys did have a tendency to jump into the frying pan without thinking of the consequences when they're bunched up together.

Too tired to think anymore, very less read her leader's handwriting; she yawned and peered over to Nora's sleeping form. She's resting on Ren's bed, holding onto his pillow. There's drool falling down her mouth and onto Ren's pillow with Sir Scrabbles, during some point after Penny left, perched itself on Nora's head to snooze alongside her. It's cute in an ironic sort of way.

Grimm and human resting together? Who would've thought?

Dropping herself down onto her bed, Pyrrha fell into a blissful, dreamless sleep, forgetting all about Jaune's Aura notebook tucked underneath his pillow.

...

The next morning came longer than the girls expected. Without the guys to wake them up, the sun's already high in the sky, pointing out their laziness. Lucky for them it's Saturday, but the guy's empty beds proved they never returned from the day before. And without their scrolls, Pyrrha had no idea where they're at. They could be trapped in a condemned building for all she knew. And at the worst possible time with their mission being pushed up.

Pulling herself up, she found Nora feeding Sir Scrabbles some Aura shards. She's still sitting on Ren's bed, cooing adorably at her little pet while at the same time badmouthing Ren. "There you go, Sir Scrabbles! Here's some yummy food! Oh! You're so cute and precious! And nice! Not like meany Ren who went on fun adventures without his partner. He's a jerk. Promise me you'll never grow up to be a jerky Ren."

So it looked like she's not over the whole surprise, only-male road trip. Poor Sir Scrabbles appeared indifferent to Nora's angry smile.

Throwing off her blankets, Pyrrha went to check on Jaune's bed, hoping for the off chance they did return last night and had simply beat them up again. But his sheets were exactly the way she left them last night, right down to the pillow? Wait a minute? Pillow?

Remembering Penny's presence last night, Pyrrha tossed the pillow away and spotted Jaune's Aura notebook. She quickly reached for it, feeling fully awake as her heart began to beat faster. Her fingers trace over the old notebook, reminding her of the first time she caught him writing notes within it. Seemed just like only yesterday he was constantly taking notes in Professor Port's class—except now Pyrrha knew it wasn't his notes and ideas he was writing down.

Flipping open the worn out notebook, Pyrrha's eyes scanned a few of the pages, noting the little things her leader wrote and scratched out here and there. She'd never really gone over the stuff he'd written, but a lot of it was groundbreaking in the terms of Aura knowledge. Definitely better than whatever those Atlas Aura scientist could've possibly come up with.

"What are you looking for?" Nora asked as Pyrrha glared at the page she's currently on, finding nothing on Penny yet. She's getting close to the end.

"Just looking to see if Jaune's added anything strange about Aura." Pyrrha answered, never looking up from the notebook, but Nora put her on the right page.

"Is it about Penny?" Looking up from the notebook, Pyrrha eyes reveal her surprise. Nora smiled sadly and put Sir Scrabbles down. "Before the guys left on their stupid road trip... Jaune-Jaune said Penny's Aura was all wrong. Something about her Aura made our leader very sad and angry. He said he wanted to help her."

Pyrrha closed the notebook. "What was wrong with her Aura? Did Jaune say?"

"It had something to do with it screaming. Penny's Aura is always screaming. And our Fearless Leader wanted to know why... so he went to go train. Then he came back and all the guys went on their dumb road trip!"

Pyrrha hid the rest of her surprise, coming to the conclusion Jaune figured out Penny wasn't normal from quite possibly their first meeting. She reopened the notebook and turned to the last page, finding exactly what she was looking for. A sketch of Penny covered the page with notes all about her Aura. Little things that would be simply impossible for her to ever notice, but not him. He already figured out Penny's an enigma without anyone ever having to reveal it to him.

"So Jaune noticed it, didn't he?"

Nora looked confused. "How did you know something's wrong Penny? I don't think Jaune ever told you. Not with you at your boring meeting."

Pyrrha smiled, hiding the notebook back under Jaune's pillow. It really was a convenient hiding spot the more she used it. "Well, for starters, she was at that boring meeting. And something had seemed off when I met her." Pyrrha lied half-truthfully. "She told me she met Jaune... and knowing our leader, I thought he might've written something down about her." The champion grinned. "And I was right. But I didn't think it would be something serious."

"Yea..." Nora sighed, learning she's pretty bad at solving problems.

Pausing, Pyrrha recounted the night before. "You and Penny seemed to have gotten along quite well last night. Even after she beat you three times at Dust Cane."

Nora crossed her arms, pouting in anger. "She's just like Jaune, a cheater! I don't know how, but she cheated! No one just rolls four twelves in a row! No one! I will get my revenge!"

Knowing Nora's revenge would likely never happen, Pyrrha stood up from the bed and went over to pick up Sir Scrabbles. Between all the members of the team, she spent the least amount of time with the little guy, practically having no relationship with the Grimm. It's hard, really hard for her to open her mind to Sir Scrabbles. She didn't have a problem with the Grimm per se, but their entire species altogether. Pyrrha was still a champion.

She's an aspiring Huntress. Harboring a tiny Grimm in their room went against each one of those beliefs and probably broke a whole bunch of rules compared to Team RWBY's dog. But it's hard to say _no_ to the face the Grimm's making as she held it up. Once she got past the whole humanity's greatest threat phase, Sir Scrabbles really was just a cuddly sloth Grimm. One that demanded to be spoiled!

Placing the little Grimm back onto Ren's bed, Pyrrha looked out the window, noting without Jaune and Ren around the day's relatively sane, boring even. Other than solving the problem with Penny—which she did—she's stuck on what to do to pass the time. She could take a page out of her leader's notebook.

Changing into her training attire, Pyrrha headed toward the door, ready to practice with her blood weapons. If she had nothing to occupy her time—and calling Jaune was out of the question—then she might as well hone her skills. The Vytal Tournament was just around the corner. They need to be ready. Jaune's future was on the line. Their _team's_ future was on the line.

"I'm going to practice in the training room."

Nora simply laughed, poking Pyrrha on the shoulder while the taller girl blushed obtusely. "Like leader, like partner! You're both always training! You two need a vacation! No! _We all_ need a vacation!"

Normally not one to relax, Pyrrha couldn't fault her logic. After everything that's happened these past two semester, a vacation sounded heavenly. Maybe after the Vytal Tournament was over she'd convince her leader for a mandatory week off. If anything, she felt like they all deserve one. Especially after they _win_ the tournament. The Penny problem had only been nothing more than an inconvenience. A distraction at its finer roots, but nothing more.

"Sure... I would like that." Grabbing the doorknob, Pyrrha lingered about for a minute, tensing herself up. Might as well tell Nora now than later. This way Nora couldn't say she didn't tell her. "By the way, our mission has been pushed up. We're leaving this Monday, not the next."

Nora groaned and fell back onto Ren's bed, grabbing Sir Scrabbles before it could jump off the bed. "Aww! Now we really need a vacation! It's not fair! How come the guys got to go on a road trip? They're probably having so much fun right now..."

...

Elsewhere! In an Atlas Male Strip bar called Rainbow-Dustcious! Four teenage boys wanted by the Atlas military were wearing various provocative outfits. They're hiding in plain sight, dancing to the outdated music playing though an even older stereo system.

"I can't believe we're hiding from bounty hunters in here of all places." Neptune grumbled, envious of Sun's inability to feel self-conscious. They just had to eat Nora's pancakes! "I think I would rather be caught then let the chance of anyone I know walk through those doors."

Jaune blinked, face innocent. "I just can't believe how popular Ren is."

Ren glared at the withered group of old bats waving around one-hundred liens, which only made him seem more appealing. His shoulder ached from his recent addition and he's stuck dancing for perverted old women to hide from the Schnee bounty hunters. "I hate my luck."

...

Other than Nora fuming over Ren for not inviting her to his sudden road trip, not much happened over the course of the three days Jaune, Ren, Sun and Neptune had been missing. Team RWBY had returned from some team bonding outing with Blake seeming even tenser and reserved than usual. Penny stopped by every now and again, secretly checking up on Pyrrha due to the General's orders while maintaining a friendship with Nora. Not like the champion paid much attention due to the Maiden Powers dilemma clouding her mind. More often than naught, Nora found Pyrrha leaving to go train on her iron control with Caliburn and Moirázo̱, hardly seeing the metal girl except for a quick passing in the halls.

Then came the news alert from Atlas about four seemingly powerful Huntsmen attacking their fair kingdom, a day after the boys disappeared. The news had been delayed a day to keep panic at a low percentage.

Impossible to ignore, the Treacherous Quadruple quickly gained infamous recognition all over Beacon. Their wanted posters got posted all over Vale with a hefty reward being offered for any information leading to their capture. And any tense atmosphere in Beacon skyrocketed with the ideas of terrorists and criminal revolting in Atlas, the capital military force in all of Remnant.

Certainly didn't help Blake out either. The girl's only more paranoid than before. But things do get better when the guys return back on Sunday night, looking worse for wear. Just in time, too, Team JNPR's mission started tomorrow. Pyrrha had been getting worried Jaune and Ren wouldn't make it back on time. She still needed to inform them about their mission status

...

Reaching their room after everyone—but the guys—cursed out the Treacherous Quadruple, Jaune and Ren prepare for the inevitable, not believing for a moment their lackluster disguise truly worked. Surely sunglasses were not enough of a disguise to fool their partners. Maybe Nora, but not Pyrrha, they know this. And based off the way she slowly closed the door with a small frown, they get ready for their impending doom. It's not like they're at fault here. Nora's the one who made the pancakes that trapped them in a maniacal rampage that ended with them attacking Atlas from a hijacked Bullhead. It was her concoction that left them in a state of unforgiving frenzy and made their blackout all the more gruesome. She did that to them.

 _They were the victims here!_

"So..." she began, turning her frown into a smile. Looked like the Aura overload didn't happen. "How was your sudden road trip? Poor Nora here was mad you didn't invite her."

"It not fair! How come Ren and Jaune get to do all the fun stuff?"

Jaune and Ren spare a second glance toward each other, blinking once in utter amazement before refocusing their sharp glares back at their counterparts. Clearly, shades really were all the disguise a person needed to blend into plain sight. Forget masks and capes! Glasses were where it's at. But this did put them in a compromising predicament.

Should they come clean? Reveal to their friends the mayhem that happened in Mistral? Expose the perilous journey from Atlas to Vale? Like the fight with the bounty hunters or perhaps the military? Maybe Jaune should talk about how he fought Winter Schnee on top of a burning Bullhead as they tried to escape Atlas with said stolen Bullhead. Heck! There were still streaks of purple in Neptune's hair! Even Ren didn't come out of this unscathed. The only positive thing that came out of the entire, heart wrenching, soul crushing, nightmare inducing experience was Jaune and Ren being able to keep their secrets, well, secret! And it was all thanks to a simple pair of shades that didn't even hide their facial structures, hair styles, or anything much for that mattered.

So? Should they spill?

Nope!

That's another _story_ for another time.

Besides, Pyrrha and Nora really wanted to bring down the D-Arc Knight and the Sloth King. The look of determination in their eyes really frightened them. They had still been looking over their shoulders from the small pathway to Team RWBY's room to their own during the quick walk in between. Paranoia was not strong enough of a word to describe the three days they've had. Hell's awfully close, though.

"Fine!" Jaune said a little too quickly. Panicking, he pointed to Ren's shoulder. "Uh? Ren got a tattoo!"

Ren flicked his angry glare over to Jaune. "What?!"

"What!" Nora screamed in anger. She moved in and grabbed Ren's cloak from behind, already pulling the article off. "Oh! I see! I can't get a tattoo! But you can!"

Running off her abandonment anger as fuel, Nora reached for Ren's clothing, and Ren had no time to warn her before the cloak's pulled off, alongside his black shirt, and her eyes widen once she spotted the tattoo. She _gasped_ a few times, not saying any words, and Pyrrha walked up from behind her while Jaune slipped away to put away Crocea Mors. Meanwhile, Sir Scrabbles took in the sight with piercing, emotionless eyes, feeling Nora's emotions all over the place until they eventually settle on unrestrained happiness.

Whatever sadness Nora felt from Ren ditching her and almost not eating her Dust Enhanced Goofy Good Delicious Pancakes, her words, not theirs, seemed to vanish without a trace as her eyes take in every juicy, heartwarming details of the tattoo on Ren's back.

There's a Sloth King on his back, right centered between his shoulder blades and lean muscles with an added cape and a crown. The king also owned a pancake castle with a moat drenched in high-grade syrup. It's all really delicious and made the butterflies in her stomach soar. But what really got Nora's attention was the little personal touch of Ren putting her name in the syrup. It's clear as day and he even had the pancake castle made out of her favorite pancakes, making the tattoo all the sweeter.

"Do you like it?" Ren nervously asked for the first time. Even Jaune and Pyrrha were stumped. "I got it..." he sighed, casting a quick, merciless, death glare at Jaune before giving Nora his absolute attention. "I got it for you."

Taking a step back, Nora finally took a second look at Ren, noticing the small change to his wardrobe. Beside the newest addition to his skin, Ren also picked up a pair of white pants with a new style of shoes—sandals really—where the toes were left to breathe and they reach partially up his leg. Matching his form fitting coal shirt and cloak, the outfit really did go together quite nicely. The Lore cloak still covered a huge portion of his body, including most of the newest additions to his attire, but the little changes could be seen. And the opened toed shoes did allow him more freedom and he loved them. That's all that really mattered in the end.

And Nora could just eat Ren all up.

"Ah!" She ran up to him and tried to crush him in a death hug. His Lore cloak and natural strength prevent that, leading up to a normal level hug in the terms of Ren's choosing. Nora's still trying to squeeze the life out of him, but the effort's all in vain. She's still rewarded with a small smile. "I love it! I love it! Love it! Love! It!"

Watching from the sidelines, Sir Scrabbles peaked closely at the human female's sudden skyrocket level of attraction for the male human she already wanted. Apparently, the male human's not so hopeless after all.

Pyrrha moved up to Jaune, smiling wistfully at her overcharged friend.

"So... Do I want to ask _how_ Ren ended up getting a tattoo, or why you didn't stop him?"

She could ask them all she wanted. Jaune, Neptune, Ren and Sun all agreed to take their dirty secrets with them to their graves.

"I wouldn't if I was you."

There's no _reasoning_ behind it.

Letting Jaune's secret slide this time, knowing guys were perfectly fine keeping secrets amongst themselves, like Nora and her with their girl talk, Pyrrha's smile weakened a bit. Without her Fearless Leader around, those three days had really given her the time to think over the Maiden problem. And now that Jaune's back, she's forced to confront the problem head on. When it came down to it, she didn't want to keep secrets from her team, but this was the weight of the world on her shoulders. There's too much at stake for anything less.

As Nora gushed over Ren's new tattoo, Jaune cracked his neck in a few places and stared longingly at his bed. Pyrrha followed his eyes, noting the weary appearance within them, and not just his, but Ren's as well. Both Jaune and Ren were downright exhausted. Whatever they did during those three days have robbed them of any sleep. That much she could tell. But before they could rest their weary heads, she grabbed Jaune by the shoulder, enticing a slow _huh_ from her drowsy leader.

"There's something I have to tell you, Jaune." He's all ears. "While you and Ren were gone, Ozpin informed me our first mission has been pushed up by a week. In other words, it's tomorrow. It's so we have more time to focus on the Vytal Tournament coming up since we're the team chosen by Vale. We'll be gone about a week, maybe less depending on the mission."

Gasping a bit, Jaune grumbled underneath his breath, cursing everything. Pyrrha's announcement forced the Arc to rub his head, already feeling the impending headache coming along. His eyes lack focus, alongside Ren's as the ninja settled down into his bed. Judging by the sudden announcement aftereffect, he's none too thrilled either. Pyrrha could tell the guys were about to crash for the night. Their sluggish movements and lackluster responses only prove that theory.

Kicking off his shoes, Jaune sat on his bed, running a hand through his messy, sun-kissed hair. For a long moment he said nothing, catching his breath before lying down with his dirty clothes still on. And for a second, Pyrrha's not sure what to do, but he came through with his oh so colorful vocabulary.

"Just great..." Jaune sighed, lying flat down on his bed with his eyes already closed. "Well, whatever! It doesn't matter now. It's not like we can say no to the mission anyways. We might as well get it out of the way now. You're right, the Vytal Tournament _is_ just around the corner."

Biting her lip, Pyrrha desperately wished she could inform Jaune about the secrets she learned, but she swore not to reveal them. She silently hoped he would talk to her about Penny at the very least, knowing he knew something was up about the mechanical girl, but he didn't seem too keen on talking anymore. Just following the way his chest continued to heave up and down at a slow rate proved he'd fallen asleep already.

Turning around, Pyrrha's not surprised to find Ren already down for the count with Sir Scrabbles crawling out from underneath his bed to join his slumbering companion, leaving a still awake Nora behind to gaze over the sleeping duo. A rare event as Ren normally waited for Nora to get tired before falling asleep. Their trip must've really taken a lot out of them. More than the champion previously thought.

"I guess we should hit the hay!" Nora grinned; snuggling up to Ren's sleeping form. His tattoo's still fresh in her mind. "Nighty-night!"

Smiling wistfully at the hyper girl, Pyrrha shut off the lights and trudged over to her own bed. She's not as tired, but without the guys awake and Nora tagging along, the room's growing too quiet for her tastes. By tomorrow morning she should be able to question her leader on what he knew. For now, she'd supply him the comfort he so desperately craved.

"Sweet dreams, Nora."

...

Team JNPR awake to the sound of their scrolls ringing at an ungodly hour in the morning. Nora tried to hide underneath Ren's covers to block out the ringing. Ren's face merely tensed up; groaning as he knew the ringing wouldn't stop, no matter how much metal power he put into solving the problem. Jaune quietly slipped his head underneath his pillow, hating his life every second. Only Pyrrha managed to get herself out of bed, having anticipated the morning wake-up call, knowing about the mission's specs ahead of time. Which made no sense to why Nora's pretending she knew nothing about mission's start time, Pyrrha knew she told the Valkyrie the day before.

Pulling herself up, Pyrrha grabbed their scrolls and checked the messages within them. They're all the same. They leave for the mission in roughly thirty minutes. Professor Goodwitch even messaged not to be late or else a triple detention was in their foreseeable future.

Slightly panicking, she nudged her stubborn leader. "C'mon, get up! The mission's in half an hour. We have to meet Professor Goodwitch in the auditorium or else she's going to give up detention."

"Alright! Alright!" Jaune yawned, sitting up. Ren and Nora have made no move to follow him. "I'm up! I'm up!"

Satisfied, Pyrrha went to push Ren and Nora awake, leaving Jaune to rub the sand out of his eyes. The one time she's a morning person had to be the day where he's dead inside. Did Monty really have it out to get him? Couldn't he just get a relatively normal day without problems smacking him dead across the face?

Peering through his fingers, he didn't even show emotions at the audacity before him. "I guess I can't."

It's not everyday someone woke up to their own wanted poster, less be it two people waking up to see their own wanted poster, hanging and covering the hole in the wall in their room. Nora must've hung it there when they weren't looking. The damn thing really captured the guy's likeness quite well. And he's not the only one thinking that, sharing a hard glance with Ren across their room, silently exchanging a signal of words without moving a muscle. The girls were none the wiser to the entire ordeal.

"It's too early!" Nora whined, breaking the males out of their silence. "Why can't we have the mission around noon?"

"At least we don't have to go to classes." Ren offered. It did nothing to make Nora feel better. For Monty's sake the sun's barely rising over the horizon. Sigh. "But I agree. It's too early."

Forcing themselves up, the team dressed accordingly; ready to take on whatever the mission may be. No school clothes for these teens! Then they left without making too much noise for the other students still sleeping, much to Nora's annoyance and Ren's reluctance to keep her from making too much noise. Jaune's still too tired to even care, happy to let Nora to wake up the entire dormitory for all he cared. Pyrrha's the only one honestly caring for the nearby students' well-being. That was until Nora suddenly stopped at the doors to the auditorium, took a quick step back, and ran back to their doom. When she returned, she was holding an odd bag, and before they could ask, she's pushing them through the doors.

As soon as they make it to the auditorium, they're tackled from a surprise visit from Penny, who's waving to them from the stands where Ozpin had first delivered his welcome to Beacon speech. She's sitting on the podium, dangling her feet aimlessly on the side, acting very Ruby like. Her bright smile gained a garner of different reactions with Ren being the only one didn't recognize her, being the only member to not meet the strange girl.

"Hello, friends!" She jumped off the stand and ran up to them, smiling playfully at the confused team. Her eyes then land on Ren, whose cloak hid most of his emotions. "You must be Ren! Nora's told me so much about you! She's right! You really are handsome!" Penny paused for a moment, looking like she crashed before rebooting herself and holding her hand out to meet Ren's. "My name's Penny Polendina! Nice to meet you!"

Mildly surprised at both Penny being able to discern who he was and who she was by recounts from Jaune, Ren calmly gripped her hand and endured the endless shaking that came with it. Compared to a life with Nora, he's used to this, going as far as to actually smile at the girl who sort of resembles Nora, right down to her voice level and overall energetic appearance. Penny even had a positive attitude. A plus in his book.

"And I'm Lie Ren; it's a pleasure to meet you, Penny."

Surprised he didn't try to break free from her grip, like others normally do, or attempt to back away the moment she entered his personal bubble, Penny felt her processors overheat at the small smile he gave her and patience he showed. Now that she could see the way his hair curved around his face and how his pink eyes pierced whatever darkness surrounded him—and he's wearing a lot of black colors—it's hard to look away.

"You really are handsome..."

Ren didn't appear to hear her. "Hn? What was that?"

Backing away from Ren, Penny stumbled on her feet, smiling embarrassingly with her arms out. "Nothing! I didn't say anything!" _Hiccup_! "So! What brings you guys here?"

Nora jumped forward. "We're going on a mission! What are _you_ doing here?"

Penny smiled, throwing her hands up. "I had an early rest so I feel all recharged. And after everyone's done with classes, Ruby and I are going to the mall to hang out! We're going to have so much fun! I can't wait to go shopping for hats!"

Pyrrha subtly glared. It's no coincidence Penny's bumped into them, not with General Ironwood lurking just across the hall with Professor Goodwitch, _especially_ not this early in the morning. Everyone in on the secret was watching Pyrrha Nikos like a hawk, and she knew that. Didn't mean the attention was any less creepy.

Luckily for her, Jaune's staring at Penny with a sudden new resolve. Whatever drowsiness that previously clung to her leader was all gone. His eyes have become sharp and harden in a split-second. Without asking, she could tell he's concentrating on his Aura to inspect Penny's. Jaune always looked serious when it came to anything Aura related. Pyrrha doubted her leader knew this. For such a fool sometimes, Jaune's anything but.

Clicking her heels on the floor, Professor Goodwitch intruded into their little talk, frowning with the resolve of a solider. "Ah, you've all made it on time. That's good, very good. Be prepared to head out in a few minutes. Our mission starts the moment we enter the Bullhead."

Turning away, none of Team JNPR could see Glynda's impressed smile as she left them alone, acutely surprised Team JNPR managed to wake up and be ready at such an awful hour for teenagers. Not to say it's _that_ early, but Glynda Goodwitch had been a teenager once. She knew the feeling all too well. Team RWBY definitely would've complained more, but Team JNPR seemed more alert. Although, Glynda didn't miss the unusual strict face on Jaune Arc aimed at Miss Polendina. That little spark of surveillance irked the professor, but she trusted in Pyrrha Nikos to not have delved any information of Ironwood's, more than questionable, experiments.

Allowing Ren and Nora to occupy Penny, seeing as she's just another Nora for Ren to handle, Jaune backed slightly away from the girl, studying the screaming going on with her Aura. The cries of agony rob him of his tiredness, forcing the leader to remember why he's trying to solve the mysteries of Aura. Unbeknownst to him, his partner had one of the puzzle pieces he so desperately needed, keeping it hidden from his sight, but that didn't mean she's not trying to show him the image he's glaring at.

Then Penny's running up to Pyrrha, looking a little less enthusiast than before. At least to her she was. "Greeting, friend Pyrrha! Excited to be leaving on your first mission?"

Could Pyrrha answer _yes_ and _no_? "As much as I'll ever be." Penny grinned and ran off to join Nora once more. Yet, by Pyrrha's eyes, she's hanging closer to Ren than Nora. Sigh. "I think Penny's perhaps taken a liking to Ren?"

When they're out of reach from everyone else's hearing range, Jaune turned to look at Pyrrha with a hint of confusion. It brought hope to her resolve. "You're friends with Penny? _Wait_! You've met Penny? How did this happen?"

Speaking half-truthfully, Pyrrha answered. "I met her on my way with my meeting with Professor Ozpin. She kind of tagged along, excited about the upcoming Vytal Tournament. She's been sticking to us like glue ever since. Why else do you think Nora and her are friends?"

"Why didn't you tell me sooner?" Pyrrha just glared at Jaune. "Oh! Right! My bad!"

"Why the sudden interest?" she timidly pushed, edging him forward.

He looked around the room filled with other people that weren't Team JNPR. He frowned before replacing it with a tired glare. "She's not normal. Not by a long-shot. I'll tell you later when it's just the four of us." Coming to a sudden conclusion, Jaune did a double take. "Did Nora tell you about Penny's... _problem_?" Pyrrha's eyes speak for themselves.

Made sense he would ask such a direct question considering he told Nora first about Penny's Aura problem. He's just making sure they're on the same page.

She poked him on the chest. "Nora kind of clued me in already on all the screaming. I know as much as she knows." That's a lie. "I also know you're trying to help. How's that going?"

Jaune kicked the floor and hid his palms away in his pockets. "Awful. I don't know if I can. I don't even know what to do or if I'm even supposed to do anything?! Her Aura's like something I've never seen before. I can't imagine what's possibly making it scream like that."

Pyrrha had a few ideas, but she's forced to swallow them down. For now she's bound by honor and her word to not reveal Penny's origins. But that didn't mean she couldn't nudge her leader toward the right direction. Any help or breakthrough at this point was better than nothing. And Jaune's always been one to rely on the barest of supplies.

Moving forward, she pulled his hands from out his pockets. "I'm sure you'll figure it out. You always do."

Grinning modestly, he scratched the side of his cheek with an added awkward laugh to hide his embarrassment. "Thanks, Pyrrha. I kind of needed that. It's been such a headache these past few days. I'll take anything I can get at this point."

They both know Jaune wanted to talk more about Penny's Aura, but Professor Goodwitch interrupted them with her stern voice cutting through the air. "We are leaving in two minutes. I repeat, two minutes! I expect Team JNPR on the Bullhead in no less than one!"

Throwing his head back, he sighed. "I guess we better go. Man! And I was so looking forward to sleeping in Professor Port's class today!" Although, he's not sure how much sleeping he could've gotten done with Weiss's deal hanging over his head. "Why does the world hate me, Pyrrha? Is it my hoodie? It's my hoodie, isn't it?"

Pyrrha giggled, slapping her leader's arm. "Don't look at me. I'm not the one who left on a road trip at the dead of night. It serves you right for worrying Nora. I don't think she got more than ten hours of sleep each day you were gone."

"... You know, I'm not seeing much of the sympathy card. I'm starting to think my team's out to get me. And you're in on it."

Pyrrha hid a smile behind her palm. "We're not out to get you. We love you, Jaune."

Jaune scoffed, glaring at a memory. "My sisters love me, too, but they're still out to get me."

The champion remained silent, letting her devious smile do all the talking. Speaking with Jaune again, after three days of absence, felt good. She already felt better about the whole Maiden magic problem. Sure, he still didn't have a clue, but just knowing he's on her side no matter what was more than enough for. Now she just needed to make a decision by the end of the week.

That's not too much pressure for a renowned fighter.

Dragging Nora and Ren away from a waving Penny, the four make their way toward the Bullhead. Once they're on the Bullhead, the ship closed the moment Professor Goodwitch got on. Her eyes roam over Team JNPR for a moment before walking toward the pilot. A few words were exchanged between the professor and the pilot before the airship slowly began to ascend into the air. Then Glynda took a seat at the back, throwing her head back in a rare moment of meditation.

Standing at the far end of the Bullhead, Team JNPR glanced amongst each other, noting the various quirks between themselves—generally Nora's new bag. Now that Penny's not here to distract them, she couldn't hide. All eyes were on her, waiting reluctantly for her to reveal the contents hidden inside. The guilty smile of hers sold her out. Like Nora's new bag wasn't going to pass inspection, especially with Lie Ren around, Nora Valkyrie expert. Cut Team JNPR some credit.

Unluckily for her, their troubles were solved—and then reborn—the moment a soft tuff of black fur peeked out of her bag with emotionless eyes. Jaune didn't say anything. Pyrrha kept her mouth shut. The duo just stared over to Ren to solve the problem.

And he didn't disappoint. Not entirely at least. "Nora? Why did you bring Sir Scrabbles along?"

His piercing pink eyes break her down and she hugged the bag with the Grimm in it protectively. "I was worried! Okay! I didn't want to leave him all by his lonesome! Do you have any idea what could've happened if I left him behind?"

"Sleep?" Ren answered quickly, sorely wishing for such a Fate. "It would've slept all day, like all sloths do. I doubt it would've even noticed if we were gone."

Nora looked at him with pleading, big, innocent eyes, clutching the bag with Sir Scrabbles protectively. Both Jaune and Pyrrha already know the outcome before it even happened. One sighed in despair, and the other hid a smile behind her hand, both knowing the ninja was wrapped around the Valkyrie's finger.

Figuring it's too late to turn back now, while knowing that revealing their problem to their professor could lead to some serious issues, issues no one wanted revealed, Ren leveled with the Grimm and glared nonchalantly at the creature. A silent message was passed between them, and the little guy hid back into Nora's bag, silent as a sloth. Then the ninja stood straight up once more, towering over Nora's frame. He plucked the bag out of her hands, throwing it over his shoulder without a second thought, and took a quick seat with a window view. Sir Scrabbles moved a second later, crawling out the bag and onto his Ren's shoulder where its long arms were hidden by the Lore cloak's collar.

Nora tried to grab Sir Scrabbles. "But... but!"

"Sir Scrabbles is staying with me. This way I can make sure it doesn't get into any kind of trouble." Nora's about to protest, but Ren _booped_ her on the nose. "If Professor Goodwitch found it, then you'll know what'll end up happening. I'm the best suited to hide the Grimm. You know that."

Plus, Ren didn't know how to tell Nora that the Grimm enjoyed his company a little bit more. Probably had something to do with the Lore cloak and his quiet appearance, emotional detachment, and love for all things healthy, and—damn it! He really was the Sloth King! How could he have let this happen?

Pouting in defeat, Nora slipped into the seat beside Ren, itching to pluck her Grimm back. No such luck as the Lie grabbed her wrist before she even made it close. "This isn't fair. He's my Grimm. I feed him! And hug him! And play with him! And love him!"

Ren scooted farther back, making space for Nora to slide in while not pointing out he groomed it. "Fine then, sit closer to me if you want to play with Sir Scrabbles, but as soon as we begin to land, I have to take it back."

Pyrrha wisely held her tongue, not commenting on how family-like Nora and Ren looked. Meanwhile, Jaune calmly tilted his head at his partner as they took their own seats across the partners, yawning for good measure.

He's frustrated and annoyed all at the same time. "So... wanna tell me what the mission is? You know Ren and I don't have a clue. Unless..." Ren shook his head. "Nope! Even the almighty Ren doesn't know. Clue a guy in, Pyrrha."

Pyrrha peered out the window. "Hmm, I don't know much. All I know is that we're heading to some village that's half-abandoned. Professor Glynda described the area as half a ghost town. The local buildings are in need for reconstruction and require Huntsmen to clear away any straggling Grimm and to aid in building."

"That doesn't sound too bad."

"Don't push your _luck_ , Ren." Jaune punned, hating how fun punning was. He blamed Yang. "Knowing our odds... something bad is gonna happen. I mean look! Nora's already made our mission two times harder and its barely starting."

Ren glowered. "Why must you poke the sleeping Grimm, Jaune?"

"Hey!" he defended. "I'm just being realistic here. We are the team with our own bad luck charm... and a Grimm. Excuse me if I'm a little paranoid."

Pyrrha diffused the tension. "Don't listen to Jaune, Ren. He's just upset about Penny. And to be fair, Nora." she added. "You did bring a Grimm along with our combat Professor sitting just down the lane. We're all a little stressed right now."

Ren's façade broke and he glanced back to his leader, more awake now. "Speaking of Penny... does her Aura still have the same problem as before?"

"Yup!" Jaune sighed miserably. "Her Aura's still the same."

Now Pyrrha's confused. "Ren already knows?"

Ren sat back into the chair, amusing Sir Scrabbles who popped its head out of his collar. "Of course I know. Jaune wouldn't stop talking about it when I confronted him while he was busy training." Blinking once, the ninja tilted his head. "By the way, Jaune's made a new discovery with Lore. I don't think he's had a chance to tell you two yet."

Interested, Nora and Pyrrha turned eagerly at Jaune, eyes almost sparkling with wonder. The Arc laughed and leaned in his chair.

"I call it Dark Matter!"

...

Arriving to their destination faster than they expected, Team JNPR exit out the Bullhead as Glynda stayed behind to talk to the pilot. On their way out, Nora's questioning Jaune's new discovery, conveying her emotions in impeccable knowledge that pushed Jaune's patience. The trip only seemed short, when in fact the Bullhead was an airship designed to travel fast. Also didn't hurt that Nora's still trying to wrap her mind around Dark Matter, a controversial topic for the powerhouse bomber, with Jaune breaking down the fundamentals as precise as he could with his own limited knowledge. Analogy speaking, it's a game of tag with only two people.

There's no clear winner in sight.

Part of Jaune thought Nora's doing this on purpose, but he had no proof.

Nora stepped out first, holding her hands out like a box. "So you have a name for it... but can't do it? What good is that?"

Jaune crossed his arms. "Well, when you put it like that, kind of makes the whole experience dumb."

Pyrrha more concerned on the implications behind the power. "Should we be worried about Grimm being able to hide their presence? And so close to the school no less?"

Ren easily settled her troubling mind. "I wouldn't worry. Didn't seem like the weaker Grimm could control or command the power of Dark Matter. Not even the Alpha Beowolves had the strength to make a little more than a handful at times. I'm guessing any Grimm powerful enough to do such a thing must be too smart to attack humans."

Nora frowned, stepping in front of the males, making sure to poke them extra hard on the shoulders. "How come you two are the ones always having all the fun? I thought we were a team?"

Avoiding the question like the Aura plague, Ren scoped out the area they landed in, noticing the sun up high in the sky. Apparently that conversation and explanation took a lot longer than he previously thought. When they left it had been early morning. Now a good fourth of the day had gone by.

Scanning the area more clearly, everyone noted the worn out buildings around them. Bustling people were moving about in the time worn village with some taking the time to stop and gaze at them, while others ignored them. Humans and Faunus alike lived here. The coloring of most of the small homes was descriptive based on how old the stones that held them were. Grass and cut stoned littered the floor, acting as some sort of a semblance of a street. They're surrounded by a dense forest as far as the eye could see. And in the middle of the village was a worn tower with roots wrapping around the stone appendages, telling of advanced age and poor up keeping. Inside the tower, any one person could make out a bell, brownish and tarnished, lifelessly settled to not move with vines holding it down. And with all that, a spark set off inside Ren. One he couldn't fully recall, but dug a hole in his soul.

"Ah! You must be the Huntsmen we called for!" Turning around, Team JNPR saw an old-timer standing behind them. He's hunched over his wobbly cane with a pair of jeans covered in permanent mud, forest green jacket without the sleeves, and a dirty brown undershirt. He's bald, but had an impressive goatee that's enhanced by the coloring of age with a small just as old. "Welcome. My village has been expecting you. Although, unless the old noggin aint what is used to be, we weren't expecting you for another week?"

"I can answer that." Glynda suddenly answered, stepping off the Bullhead. "Some unexpected news came up and we needed to push the mission ahead of schedule." She frowned sadly. "I hope that won't be an issue? It was a last minute thing."

The old man just laughed. "Haha! Not at all! The sooner, the better! And please, call me Tsutsuji!" Leading them away, Tsutsuji waved them to follow. "How about I show you around? Then we can get started on the mission. You must need to stretch your legs after such a long flight."

"Thank you."

Following Tsutsuji around, they all took in the sights, noticing more and more how complicated the village really was. There were buildings meant for different jobs. Like one meant for blacksmithing and another meant for sewing and buying clothes. Little quirks of Dust and technology existed here and there, meaning this place wasn't totally isolated from the kingdoms.

They did call and request for a mission after all.

Finally, the old man led them to a grand building where moss and sunburned stone held surrounded the structure. There Tsutsuji motioned for Glynda to follow him, slowly opening up a pair of large wooden doors that seemed older than the teenagers.

"You'll need to meet the village elders to discuss arrangements for your stay."

Glynda moved forward. "Of course, Team JNPR, you four wait out here while I sort out the details. And please, don't get into too much trouble." She expressly looked at Nora. "I mean it. Mission or not, we're guest here. Let's not make Beacon look bad."

 _Shut_!

Pyrrha remained silent for all but three seconds. "Well... now what?"

Jaune shrugged. "I guess we can go explore more? If we're staying here for a while, it would help knowing where everything's at."

"I like that idea!" Nora cheered, running in some random direction. "Let's see if they have a pancake house! I want breakfast!"

The other members of the team doubted they did. Yet, moments later, they're proven wrong, enjoying freshly made pancakes from the only building in the area that even had the proper ingredients to make pancakes. Nora happily munched on her favorite food, while making sure to feed Sir Scrabbles little bites when she was sure no one was looking. Pyrrha enjoyed the waffles they also cooked while Ren and Jaune proved to not be hungry.

Kicking his feet out, Jaune relaxed an arm on the back of his chair, wondering what classes were going over back at Beacon. Weiss was probably going to be furious with him after he returned. Ditching out on their deal would probably do that to her. Not to say it's his fault their mission got pushed up by a week. Besides, Ruby shouldn't be afraid of ghost.

They weren't real! Silly, Ruby!

Throwing his head toward the direction where Professor Goodwitch was at, Jaune pondered over what the mission really entailed. Other than the people bustling about, not much could be said about this strange village. Heck! They didn't even know what this place was called, forgetting to ask the old guy for a name before he dragged their professor away for who knew what. So much for mission specs.

The guys wait for the girls to finish eating, having secured a table outside, interested in heading toward the blacksmith's shop across the village. Some people stop by to observe them, curious to the new faces around, but almost all of them look away almost immediately when they glance over to Ren's direction. Some were unable to hide the astonishment from their faces, giving away their emotions too easy for Jaune and Ren to simply ignore. But they make no use fussing, chalking it up to Ren's cloak making him look intimidating to the average person. Which, to be perfectly fair, it kind of did.

Helped that the Lore affected anyone not used to a Grimm's presence, placing all the common emotions onto them that the Grimm find appealing, while Team JNPR remain relatively fine from the Lore's weaker influences. And there really was a Grimm nearby. It's just hiding in Ren's cloak. If anything, the village people should be worried. Team JNPR brought a live Grimm to their little home.

Looking around the village, Ren spotted a lone Lotus flower in the middle of some murky puddle. Everything about the flower's appearance and texture made no sense whatsoever to the Lie, and his gaze kept referring back to the lone flower blooming randomly in the village. And to make things twice as strange, a black butterfly suddenly passed his vision, flying over to the Lotus flower. There it flew in circles, enticing a reaction from the stoic man, which he pointedly ignored for a while, content to watching Nora feed Sir Scrabbles. But the nagging picture burned into his mind, grabbing his attention without fail. Ignoring it didn't help. And just looking at it didn't seem to help either. So he's only given one option left.

Breaking away from the group, Ren got up and walked over to the black butterfly fluttering around the Lotus flower in the tiny puddle of water, leaning down to get a better look, prepared to satisfy his inquisitiveness. What still confused him greatly was the butterfly's presence in mid fall or even the Lotus flower for that matter. None of these things should be here. None of them!

Fluttering toward Ren's shoulder, Sir Scrabbles popped out of his collar, glancing up at the black and partly pink butterfly landing squarely on it. It fluttered its wings a few times, not scared of the Grimm's mere presence. Then it flew up to Ren's nose before flapping away into the opposite direction, where it flew in endless circles.

Looking over his shoulder for a few seconds too long, he sighed and stood back up, intent to join up with his team, but a second butterfly crossed his path, moving to join the second. But when Ren turned around to see it, all he saw was the first one still flapping around in that same endless circle. It's enough to make his blood run cold.

Ignoring it, the third butterfly to cross his path was the breaking limit, more so when Ren whipped his head to glare at the insect, only to find that same faithful _one_ still moving in circles. The other two that passed him were nowhere to be seen. Illusion-like almost. As if he saw nothing but lies.

Reaching down to find his instinct, Ren turned his full attention toward the stationary butterfly, taking one cautious step forward, and it flew slightly back because of it. Taking another step, the butterfly mirrored his image, acting almost like a doppelganger, even following his movements when he moved his foot back. And before Ren truly realized what he's doing, he's walking toward the little thing, following it as it led him deeper away from the village and to a more environmental path that's more nature than man.

Now he got it. Now it all made sense. Why everyone in the village called it half a ghost own. Everyone's too afraid to venture beyond the forest since the years have painstakingly taken their tolls over the barely visible stone road. For no one to bother with upkeep? A tragedy must've happened through that forest a long, _long_ time ago.

Soon the walk turned into a fast paced stride, then a jog, and finally a run as his instincts guide him. He didn't even hear his team calling out to him, too busy trying to catch a black butterfly moving at speeds faster than nature should have given the tiny creature. Not even the Lore cloak's ability to lessen his gravity was helping. The damn butterfly was too fast for Ren to catch.

And then it's not.

During the run, a memory of Ren's flashed before his eyes, the very same one of Nora and him chasing black butterflies in the woods during the day their families died. Ren actually had to dig his feet into the ground to lower his momentum and velocity before crashing into the stonewall blocking his and the butterfly's path. Now that the path's blocked, the tiny creature landed on his shoulder, resting its weary body. There, the human, Grimm and Lepidoptera glare at the stone wall covered in vegetation, waiting for Ren's friends to catch up.

Something seemed off. Maybe even strangely offset. Nothing's familiar or _rings a bell_ in any sort of way, but everything spoke out to him. Almost like a haunting feeling he couldn't shake off. The Lore from the cloak was oddly discomforting, unable for once to properly control his power. He felt his Semblance breaking free from the restraint, a first for him with this gift. As if a stronger force was overpowering the Lore keeping his Aura trapped, calling out to it with a desperate plea.

Glaring over to the insect, Ren narrowed his eyes. "Why did you lead me here?" To answer his question, the butterfly flew over the wall, tempting him to follow. "Is this a game?"

Deciding whether or not he should follow, Ren passably glanced over the stone wall, eyes suddenly being drawn to a carved picture half covered by green moss. Even with most of the carving covered, he still recognized that partially visible curve from somewhere. Memories of his life begin to beat in the inside of his skull, and he's force to take a step back when one memory finally stuck.

Far behind him, the rest of Team JNPR trace after the path he ran with Jaune using Lore to sense if any nearby Grimm were lurking around. There's no Outer Space other than Ren's to sense, but he's eternally surprised by the crushing pressure building up from the source. Either Ren's actively using his Aura or his emotions were scattered and his Aura's becoming increasingly unstable.

"What's wrong with Ren?" Nora yelled, moving faster than all of them.

Jaune concentrated more on his Lore, increasing his speed to pass Nora. "I don't know. But something's not right with him. I can feel his Outer Space! His Aura's acting up!"

Eventually they reach him, coming to a surprising halt as Ren's pink eyes remain glued to the stone wall. Nora ran up next to him in no time, grabbing him by the arm in desperation. His eyes look so serious. They're controlled by an array of emotions too powerful to suppress and she's afraid for her childhood friend.

"Ren... what is it?"

Ren moved his free hand out and traced his fingers slowly on the molded bedrock. A simple swipe of his palm revealed the structure and image hidden beneath the vegetation and reality hit them both _hard_. Memories flood back to their minds and Sir Scrabbles picked on the anxiety building up in Ren's soul and heart-wrenching sorrow in Nora's. For hidden beneath the aged moss was the Lie clan's symbol—the Raincloud of Misfortune.

"Nora... it's our old home. We're in Kurochō."

* * *

 **Author Notes:** Just in case you readers didn't get it, the first half of the chapter takes place during the same time when Weiss asked Jaune to accompany her to the transit tower, just from Pyrrha's point-of-view since she was missing pretty much the whole chapter before. Also, I'm not following Volume 4's Ren and Nora backstory, always having planned to use my idea on Ren and Nora since the beginning.

 **Cover Art:** Exvnir

Edited **\- 1/15/2019**


	19. Porpoise

**Disclaimer:** I own nothing of RWBY.

* * *

 **Porpoise**

 **By: Imyoshi**

Kurochō?

Nora Valkyrie couldn't recall the last time she heard _that_ name. It seemed like such a long time ago. And the village—her village—why was it in such a disarray? Neither Ren nor Nora even recognized the village when they walked right through it. Kurochō used to be such a nice place, filled with happiness and joy. Every building and home had love and cared carved into it. Now it's all in shambles, including the wall before them. Sure, they might've been children when they left their home, but during some part of their lives, this place had still been their home! And now it's falling apart.

Moving forward, Nora peeked over to Ren, haunted by his cold, emotionless exterior. "Is it really home? We haven't visited our family's home since the day we left."

Ren didn't answer her. He knew she remembered the symbol of his broken clan. There's no doubt in either of their minds. Nora used to love drawing the raincloud on the pavement during the warm summer days when they were just kids. It was almost kind of funny in its own right. Too bad the punchline missed its mark.

Finding the energy to remove his fingers off the wall next to impossible, Ren took a step forward and dipped his head, obscuring his vision from the world by the bangs of his hair. His forearm held him up as he gently breathed in, shutting his eyes off to the world around him. The broken stones prick his hand, digging into the skin, but he didn't notice any of it. He's too busy controlling the diversity of emotions bubbling deep inside him. All of which proved to be an unbearable task for the Lie.

The façade he's resting on was crumbling around him. And there's nothing anyone could do to stop it. Not him. Not his leader. Definitely not Nora. Not anyone.

Unlike Nora, who's also feeling a generous amount of sadness, this place still haunted his memories till this day. His personality—his _life_ began here! Everything that's beyond this wall was what defined Lie Ren. And what shattered him. There were no good memories here. None at least he wished to remember. Such miracles elude him. Such enjoyment he didn't deserve. A monster deserved nothing but pain and sorrow.

Watching from the sidelines, Jaune _clicked_ his teeth together from the sudden way the cloak's Lore was affecting Ren's Aura. The dark, dangerous power was doing something unknown to the Lie, entangling new strands of darkness from the deepest depths of the Grimm stitches. All the emotions Ren's feeling must be tampering with the Lore. It was, after all, the power of the Grimm, monsters that could sense negativity. And there's no doubt in his mind that both Ren and Nora were grieving in their own special way. However, the implications of such an emotional trauma was untested. Lore was such a strange, _dark_ power with its own agenda. High levels of negativity were dangerous.

The effects of prolong exposure of Lore on an unguarded mind was currently unknown.

On a personal note, he's not totally sure how to react to all of this. Ren and Nora's past were still somewhat of a mystery to him. A detached part of the Arc knew they haven't revealed everything, probably too hurt from the memories themselves. He got that. By all means, Jaune didn't understand the vacant feeling in their hearts, but on some level, he did understand from where they're coming from. He just couldn't relate to the feelings hovering around. And he's not the only one with mixed feelings about all this.

Sir Scrabbles was worried for its caretakers, sensing an unrivaled amount of depression and anger coming from both of them. The male it could understand, truly it could, but for the female to feel this amount of untapped sadness far exceeded the Grimm's expectations. Such sadness made the Grimm wonder if the emotions would attract others of its kind. Perfectly enough, the redheaded female made an attempt to calm them down, grabbing the orange-haired female by the shoulder with a calm, reassuring smile, with eyes bright and lusher than the forest around them.

"Are you both okay?" An honest question that's normally followed with a dishonest answer.

That's not the case this time. Nora's unnaturally quiet. "No... No we're not fine."

"We could leave if you want?" Jaune lamely added, unsure how to go any further.

"Ren?" Lore's consuming Ren, but Nora's voice snapped him out of it. "What do you want to do?"

The answer she received was Ren placing his hand on the ancient gate. The gate's taller than all of them, towering an impressive ten feet into the air. Old age had done little to break down the wall, but it's impossible to miss the wear and tear across the stone structure entirely. A testament to the clan's once unfortunate power.

Pushing the rusted gate open, Ren entered first, not missing the slight breeze that passed by his feet. The metal creaked, almost falling apart at the seams, then it did when Nora pressed slightly too hard on the aged iron. Pyrrha felt broken as she witnessed the gate fall apart, unable to stop the comparison of rust between the gateway and her old weapons. All of which have been left to rot, forgotten in a period of time that had long since passed. Just like the clan compound in front of her.

Jaune's the last one to enter, observing Ren's Lore with his own. How much courage did a person need to return back to their old home after such a tragedy? He couldn't even imagine what Nora and Ren were going through. And worst of all, the Lore from Ren's cloak was capitalizing on that. Instead of containing his Aura like a prison, it mingled and occasionally darkened the hue of pink, but it always bounced back at the last moment. If it got any worse, he's going to have to intervene and remove the cloak from Ren's person. For now, however, the Arc would remain behind as an observer.

If Team JNPR thought the village was in shambles, Ren and Nora's clan compound's worse for wear. The plant life had reclaimed the complex almost entirely. The stones beneath their feet were fighting for dominance with weeds and flowers, the building, while a more variant of color of silver, were dulled and flaking. No sound could be heard except for their feet clicking on the rocks. Not even birds or other animals intrude this desolate place. Everything, outside the plant life, was just so dead and barren.

Passing by a few of the buildings, Pyrrha noted how almost all the structures inside looked identical. Each block and rectangular home lacked any real accessory to make them standout, except for the variants of colors for decoration, but they're all relatively matching in style. Occasionally, she could see Ren's clan symbol on the side of a building, however, some of the clouds have thunderbolts that oddly resembled Nora's pajama thunderbolt, maybe indicating possible Valkyrie homes? She didn't know. And speaking of the loudest member of their team, Pyrrha smiled sadly for the unusual quiet girl.

Nora's acting exceptionally strong to be walking in a place like this. The champion wouldn't know if she could muster up the strength to accomplish the same feat. Her invincible armor might not be enough. It might crumble underneath the pressure. Maybe even possibly hold her down. She's forced to shake her head to rid herself of such inklings.

They then turn a corner and all of them felt their blood freeze up. Their hearts all skip a beat, but it's only two of them _gasping_ at the devastating sight. In front of them was a row of tombstones with black butterflies occupying a variety of them. Age was evident. Slabs of concrete were broken in corners and the floor's taken over by Mother Nature. On some of the headstones they could see the beginning names of Lies or Valkyries etched in. Some were eligible, others were simply not. And some had no names at all, forgotten to even the people of the village below. Unknown during their demise.

"Oh my..." Pyrrha gasped. Ren momentarily closed his eyes and Nora clutched his arm. "I'm sorry."

He opened his eyes again and gave a sad smile of his own. "It's not your fault... it's mine." Ren didn't wait for Pyrrha to say anything. He broke away before she could and started to move pass the headstones, searching for any evidence of his parent's headstone. He couldn't find them. "I'm the sole reason this happened. This is wouldn't have happened if I hadn't been around."

Nora detached herself from his arm, pulling Sir Scrabbles off of Ren's neck so she could hug the little guy. She long since given up this battle. Telling Ren he's not a monster was as impossible as getting him to stop eating healthy food. It's not ever going to happen. Not in her lifetime.

Lady Luck would have to shine down her luck upon her to make such a thing happen.

Catching up to Ren as he ventured deeper into the compound, Jaune studied the waterless raincloud, curious to its origins. "I have to ask, why is a raincloud your clan's symbol, Ren? I kind of expected, I don't know, dice or anything else than some weird raincloud. It doesn't even have water!"

Coming to a halt, Ren sighed and hunched his shoulders for a bit. He looked over his shoulder to address his leader, turning his body partially as well. "There are two parts to my Semblance. I've told you about my bad luck... but not of my family's name. I am, after all, from the _Lie_ clan. There's a meaning behind that name. It's not just for show." Bringing his hand out, Ren held it under a symbol of his clan. "Lies and bad luck... they go hand-to-hand together. And the raincloud is probably the biggest symbol that's universally known. Everyone knows that a raincloud can ruin a person's day, but it's their unpredictability and misfortune that draws the person's attention away. They come at the best times, where it's all sunny and cheerful, raining misfortune with its lies."

Jaune looked at the symbol, skeptic, questioning the influence of a raincloud. "Really? A raincloud says all that?"

He shrugged and pointed to the sky. "I'm pretty sure you've heard of the expression _to rain on someone's parade_. It may sound silly, but the raincloud is the greatest form of lie and bad luck. It's unmistakable and unparalleled in the grand scheme of bad luck and misfortune." Ren sighed and waved his hand halfheartedly in the air. "Truth be told, I never really understood what that actually meant. My parents didn't teach me the secrets about our clan's full name. The accident happened before they could. And it never really seemed important to bring up."

The more he knew, the more Jaune wanted to know. "So what? You never tried to incorporate the raincloud into your setup?"

His answer came in the form of a long silence. Jaune's almost afraid he asked the wrong question, but Ren's pulling out his weapon and tossing it to Jaune. "The Lotus flower is a sign of good luck. It's the flower in StormFlower; however, the storm in my weapon's name represents the dark cloud. The good and the bad balance each other out."

Jaune blinked once, inspecting the weapon with a critical eye. "Do you really believe that?"

Ren laughed quietly. He didn't know what to believe anymore. He grabbed his weapon and hid them back in his sleeves. "I don't know, at least I don't know anymore. Who knows if my superstitions worked?" Looking at the clan's symbol, Ren traced his hand alongside it. "A lot of us weren't fighters. So very few of us controlled the power of Misfortune to a high-degree, but the power was never different. In some way, shape or form, bad luck was part of a Lie's power. It was a curse we lived with since the day we were born."

Sensing the need to be alone, Jaune placed a comforting hand on Ren's shoulder and shoulder bumped the Lie. He waved goodbye and went to go find Nora and Pyrrha, leaving Ren alone to deal with the demons plaguing his mind.

Thanking Jaune silently for the understanding, Ren continued his journey to the place that held the most memories for him. Each step flashed back some pleasant and heart-crushing memories of his past life. Each one of them hurt more than the next, but he waved them off, used to pushing such thoughts away with relative east and haunted by the feeling of his Semblance lurking all around the compound. Finally, he reached his destination, knowing full well which one was his old home, even if he'd been missing for roughly twelve years.

Entering his old home, Ren narrowed his eyes as memories flashed before him. Some were about his mother and others his father. They're blurry at best, but their voices ring true. Dried blood covered the walls and he actually found an old toy of his on the ground, dust covered and rusted. Inside he ventured deeper to his old room, hardly remembering any of the things inside. Toys he had no recollection for were covering the floor, dust covered and meaningless to a teenager with self-doubt problems. He soon found the home cold and uninviting, so he left in pursuit of one more place of interest.

Going a little bit deeper into the compound, a harsh wind breezed through his cloak, guiding him toward his next destination. Not like he needed the help, this Lie still recalled the overall foundation of his old home. But his attention's still grabbed when a new black butterfly fluttered pass him, heading the direction he was already walking toward.

Glaring with interest, he followed and turned a corner, coming face-to-face with the clan's most guarded compound. It stood on a podium like platform, separated by stairs. And he's soon finding himself traveling up the stairs, reaching the old door blocking the entrance. Forcefully pressing the wooden passage to move, the wood broke apart from the sudden force, opening up his path to inside the compound's most treasured sanctum. As a child, he wasn't allowed any deeper into the sanctuary, forbidden to travel deeper by the adults. Ren vaguely remembered it had to do with innocence, but the real reasoning was long gone to the sands of time.

This time there's nothing stopping him from venturing deeper into the sanctuary where the secrets to his clan were held. Apparently, only a Lie could maneuver deeper into the temple, hence why none of Nora's family ever got to go deeper. Just another thing Ren never understood about his clan as a young child.

Entering the old building, his pink eyes shined in the parallel darkness, reflecting back all the false truths around him. Inside, he couldn't make out much. Broken statues of their clan's symbol etched over the walls and the vegetation hadn't gotten too deep within. Nothing of real significance resided within; being a circular room didn't allow such hiding spots to exist. And except for the tattered remains of paper and furniture, added with the broken statue of Lady Luck with her face shattered, nothing really stood out to make Ren question the importance of this building.

How a person could go any farther than one room was a bigger mystery to Ren than the Grimm clawed around his neck. He didn't see why he was forbidden from this room until he grew of age. There's nothing to see, nowhere to hide anything of great importance, well, at least as far as his eyes could tell. What could his clan have hidden here?

"There's nothing here."

A black butterfly then moved past him, venturing deeper into the singular room. Without so much as a sound, the creature landed on a wall with his clan's symbol carved into the stone, tempting Ren to follow once more. And he did, walking over to the wall to trace his fingers on. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary until he pushed the wall, testing its weight, revealing a passage when the section turned against his push.

Ren sighed and dropped his head as he walked into the narrow passage. "I should've known nothing was what it seemed. I am from the _Lie_ clan after all. Deception is part of the package."

Light somehow ventured inside. Upon closer inspection, Ren could see that the light came from some outside source and was being reflected on hidden mirrors. They're cracked and even broken. Not the entire hallway was filled with hidden sunlight, but it's enough for Ren to safely venture inside. And unlike the rest of his compound, time didn't seem to have targeted this place. There's no vegetation or cracked stones. Everything's clean and polished, hardly showing any age.

The walk to the endgame was short, real short. At the end of the passage was a single scroll on a stone tablet, partially hidden from the light. Picking up the scroll, Ren unrolled the parchment, glaring weirdly at the random scribbles written within. His hand ran through the aged paper, looking for anything eligible, and found only one thing that's clear as day, written on the top for anyone to see.

"Only a Lie's eye can see through the deception? Aura is the key? What does that mean?" Lowering the parchment, Ren found his eyes scanning over the carved paintings, lost and in need of a key.

A picture on a wall told a story, one Ren could not read, but he could make out the _Evil Eye_ within—their clan's eye. The eye itself was outlined with three orbs embedded within both sides of the eye. The Evil Eye was the known source of power for the Lies. Aura's a second contender to the story. Mystical and powerful, the strange power entrapped their clan's eye in a protective barrier. Then the eye shined a light and a hidden word was unearthed. And personally, Ren had never attempted to add Aura solely to his eyes before. Aura had primarily been more of an instinctual power, always there. He understood using Aura to improve a person's strength in like their arms and legs; he understood that, but never before had Ren thought to only supply Aura to his eyes.

It's so crazy to consider, which was why he's contemplating doing it, because Team JNPR was all about the insane. Insanity had pushed them this far, maybe it could push the Lie a little further.

Concentrating, he found the action surprisingly difficult, even with all the Aura training he received from both Jaune and the Aura notebook. Adding Aura to only eyes was not a technique Huntsmen train in, very less thought of. Aura in eyes just had no practical use. But overtime, thanks to all the training he received, Ren managed to somehow pull it off. The sensation's a weird one, yet, he felt no change whatsoever to his eyes. All he knew was that the Aura's getting redirected there.

Confused, he looked down at the scroll in his hands and his eyes widened. "How?"

There! Written on the parchment, the words have all changed. They're pink in hue, appearing before him as readable text. And to test the likelihood of all this, Ren canceled the channeling of his Aura, suddenly finding the wording becoming unreadable once more, lacking the pink hue from before.

"Incredible!" Narrowing his eyes, he gripped the paper and focused on his Aura once more, going over the text. "Let's see. What's so important my family had to hide it here?" And he began to learn. Began to read what had been lying in wait for over twelve years.

 _The Lie Techniques_

Narrowing his eyes even more, he pressed onward.

 _The pink eyes of the Lie can have the power to see through fantasy. Nothing is hidden behind the Lie's power. No false truths can be told and no illusions can be set. For a Lie's eye can see the pink glow surrounding a false truth around them. The Evil Eye cannot be tricked._

 _The Evil Eye is all knowing._

 _Bad Luck and Lying come together like the forces of light and darkness, forever bound together by Lady Luck's infinite design. The power of lying and misfortune coexist together in perfect disorder. Such as the Doppelganger and it's subtly of lying to a person while cursing them with bad luck. Mirrors, too, can distort their reflections and tell a lie, even more so when the mirror has cursed an individual with seven seconds of bad luck. Even weapons, such as the umbrella, is one big lie and beacon for bad luck to converge on at the most oddest of time._

 _The greatest symbol of a lie is the raincloud. Unpredictable by nature, it lies about the day's purpose, surrounding everyone in a layer of bad luck._

 _The Lie clan's Evil Eye is not only the source of their power, but a mirror as well._

 _The eyes are the mirrors of the soul and reflect everything that is hidden within; and like a mirror, they also reflect the person looking into them. But a mirror can be distorted and morphed, lying about the appearance, changing Fantasy into Reality, the greatest of all lies._ _Mirrors and doppelgangers are all potential signs of bad luck, but they're also signs for lies. A broken mirror doesn't reflect what you're actually looking at. And a doppelganger is a person, but not the person you know. They're all lies._

 _A curse given by the Evil Eye works differently, in order to use such a curse, one must throw away an ability first to properly set one. Such as sight, taste, touch, hearing, smell, or even the ability to speak. One must be thrown away first before a curse with the Evil Eye can be done. And if shall the curse bearer die, so shall the curse, unless a new Lie continues the game of deception._

 _However, control over deception doesn't come without a steep price. The greater fear is felt, the more the power in the eyes lessens. Emotions rule over a lie, and losing control can weaken a lie's ability to play with false truths. Pink loses its shine until it steeps to a soft pink and then clears to white._

Ren gripped the edge of parchment, confused. "But I have two Evil Eyes. How does that affect me?"

 _In order to utilize the full power of the clan's eyes, a Lie must do the special hand sign of the Lies. Where truth is altered to become False, reality is replaced with Fantasy, and where fortune is replaced with misfortune. The special hand sign is..._

"Wait!" Ren paused, rereading a certain passage he read in the beginning. "What was that I just read?"

 _The pink eyes of the Lie can have the power to see through fantasy. Nothing is hidden behind the Lie's power. No false truths can be told and no illusions can be set. For a Lie's eye can see the pink glow surrounding a false truth around them. The Evil Eye cannot be tricked._

Rereading over the line of text for what felt like a lifetime, Ren put the scroll down and thought long and hard behind the words written down. Memories of seeing his Semblance over his family's dead bodies strike him, or, it was his Semblance and not something else talking to him.

Was it?

The confused Lie recalled the time Jaune and him had a heart-to-heart in Emerald Forest, during the night both Pyrrha and Nora were out of commission. Something he said, something he _believed_ , didn't sit to right with him now. Not after reading that passage.

 _It's the first time Jaune's ever heard Ren laugh, and it's hollow and dead. "Of course at the time, I didn't know it was a curse. I didn't know, but by the time I did, it was already too late. I had been using my Semblance far too carelessly and it spread too much. Eventually, disaster struck. Both Nora's and my family fell to ill misfortune, and I knew it was my fault. I could_ _feel_ _and even_ _see_ _my Semblance all over their remains. They said it was a freak accident—but I_ _knew_ _!"_

Catching his breath, Ren fell onto the back of a wall, sliding down effortlessly. He clawed his hair, only thinking about the Evil Eye's ability to see through all the lies.

It was a freak accident, wasn't it? That's what the elders of the village told him. They had no reason to lie. It made no sense. Of course that had to be the truth. What other explanation could there be? That just had to be the truth. It had to be! He set his whole life to the idea he took away everything from Nora and him. But what if, what if what he felt and saw wasn't his Semblance, but his Evil Eyes telling him something was amok.

Could it be true? Could he have been lied to? Lie Ren didn't want to believe it. He didn't even want to take a chance because it would ruin everything! But not doing anything would be irresponsible. It would be shameless and disrespectful to both his and Nora's family. And if there's even the slightest possible chance that it had all been a lie, some fabrication to hide the truth from him, then he would want to know.

Who wouldn't?

Testing his luck, Ren put the scroll down and took the deepest breath he'd ever taken, ready to push his luck to the limit. On one hand, he's hoping for his version of the tale to be true, however sad that may be. On the other hand, part of him wanted to believe he's not a monster walking around in human skin. He wanted to be the person Nora's always believed him to be. She deserved that much.

She deserved more.

Walking out toward the graveyard where everyone he knew lied, Ren took a moment to appreciate the karma justice of a clan believing too much into the power of the Evil Eye. It's ironic. Lies, as arrogant as they may be, were also ignorant bliss in a monster hungry world, shielding people from the harsh truth of reality. Meanwhile, the truth was anything but pleasant, terrible and gut-wrenching in the face of the people who couldn't handle it, whom prefer to live in a lie, who prefer to live in a _fantasy_. Those were a false set of beliefs people setup for themselves, barriers that couldn't withstand even the gentlest of winds.

"They were all fools in the end." Ren said easily enough, speaking ill of the dead.

Standing at the edge of the graveyard, Ren saw nothing, but he did feel his remnant Semblance lurking about. Concentrating on his eyes next, Ren still saw nothing, but that's probably because he had yet to push his luck. Part of him was scared. He's scared to be tricked—scared to be lied to. But he's even more scared of the possible truth lying in wait for him.

Glancing over to the Raincloud of Misfortune, the sight of a passing butterfly gave him the wordless strength he needed to perceive. Carefully, without hesitation, Ren glared over the graveyard, Aura charged and eyes fierce. A harsh wind blew past his cloak and sent a trail of goosebumps up his body.

"Mine and Nora's family died because of me. The elders of the village told me the truth. No one killed mine or Nora's families. The Valkyrie and Lie family perished due to a strain of unrestricted bad luck!"

The pink hue's impossible to miss.

Evil Eyes precipitously burned with an unparalleled fury.

...

 _Slam_!

Lie Ren shoved the doors to the elders' council meeting, _hard_ , caring not for the damage done to the wall or hinges. Cracks covered the entire concrete wall from the sudden force, partially due to Aura enhanced muscles and Misfortune leaking out by his own discord, other by Lore's influence over Ren's emotions. Eyes of pink burned with a fury unrivaled by the Grimm, and they're directed at the men and woman sitting across from him, unguarded and emotions burning. Luckily and _unluckily_ for them, Glynda Goodwitch wasn't here to protect them. And it's not their fault Lie Ren just happened to remember where the elders met up. His memories of his hometown weren't that bad. In fact, they're all coming back to him.

The elder's leader stood up, angry. "What is the meaning of—?"

"Who killed my clan?! Who killed Nora's family?!" Ren moved forward and grabbed the leader at the center of the circle, crushing him into the nearest wall with only one hand. His eyes shined brightly in anger. "And don't lie! I'll know if you do! Now tell me! What happened that day?! Tell me!"

The elder looked to the others for help, but they remain seated, losing their courage instantly. Lie Ren's angry. There's no two ways about it. Only difference was the Lore surrounding him had amplified his unguarded emotions, fueling to channel his negativity on the people that deceived him and Nora. Pain's etched throughout the room. Rage pushed him forward without a path to follow except for their untold destruction. Just like a Grimm, except he's ten times worse than the beasts lurking outside the village walls.

They all knew this was coming the second they heard of Lie Ren and Nora Valkyrie's return.

Why else were they having a meeting?

When the elder finally rested his eyes on the pink ones glaring back at him, full of despair and need, a quick flash of his memory replaced the face with a younger, more emotion driven version that had a smile larger than life. When the flash disappeared, the old man finally recounted the man pinning him to the wall with a sense of longing. He's happy and tired at the same.

It appeared his number was up. Now was the time to come clean and return back to that truthful day where it all began. "I knew this day was coming. Pushing our luck that it wouldn't was childish to even consider."

Ren increased the pressure on his throat. "What?!"

Grabbing Ren by the wrist, the elder met his glare. "You probably don't remember me, Lie Ren, but I used to watch you when you were just a baby. My name's Shiragiku." Ren released the old man when his eyes found no deceitfulness in his words, taking a small step back. Shiragiku calmly checked his throat before addressing the Lie. "So you've figured out the truth? Or at least partially I'm guessing?"

Ren fought the urge to grab the man once more, taking in his appearance instead. He was an aging man with liver spots and dark brown eyes. His skin had a brownish complexion, most likely from the sun beating down upon him. His grey hair was missing on the top and spiky going out all directions around his dome. He held no contempt for Ren, that much he could see, but there was pity in those worn out eyes of his.

Pity for him and him alone.

Tilting his head, Ren pushed his anger back a step. "What do you know? Tell me!"

The elder dusted off his robe, undeterred that he almost got chocked to death. "I don't need to tell you, Ren, that those eyes are special, you know that, and so did some other unsavory individuals, a group of bandits that are known for robbing and pillaging weak villages for their supplies. They attacked us twelve years ago, but not for riches or supplies..." Shiragiku sighed, moving up to meet the broken man. "They wanted those eyes of your people. Special eyes, powerful eyes! And they came without warning, aiming to steal the power of Bad Luck out from our hands, and they almost succeeded..." Shiragiku smirked, immensely proud at young Ren's accomplishment. "It had seemed some _misfortune_ fell upon them and all the eyes of the Lie Clan they killed suddenly lost their light. They were useless. All of them. Every. Single. One." He laughed, reminiscing the past. " _You rained on their parade_."

Ren's confused which led to anger. "Why didn't you tell me?" he roared, releasing a large amount of Aura. "Why did I have to figure it all out now?! Why now?"

Anger was redirected with calmness. "We thought it would be safer for the village, and _you two_ , if you didn't know until you got older. The bandits already thought all of you Lies were dead, so they had no reason to come back. If we had told you, you might've tried to extract revenge, which would've surely ended up with you punching your own ticket and letting them win. We didn't want that to happen. Not until you were much older. Against what you might believe, we always had yours and that Nora girl's best interest at heart."

"Were you ever going to tell me the truth?" Ren missed the irony of his words. "Was I going to live a lie my whole life?"

Shiragiku coughed. "You two left before we could figure out a way to tell you."

He scoffed his claim. "So it was either let me live a _lie_ or tell me the _truth_ when I was ready? Was that it?!"

The old man glared, meeting Lie Ren's heated glare with a burning one of his own. His tone and voice cut the tension in two. "The _lie_ kept you alive. The _truth_ would've killed you—both of you." Shiragiku dropped the glare when Ren did, fixing the youngster with query. "But now you know the truth. What's your next move? What is Lie Ren going to do? Do you aim to kill an old man? Because maybe I deserve it. I can't even imagine the guilt you've lived with all this time."

Ren seemed lost. If he was younger, then revenge would be his go to answer, but he's far too wise to follow such a path blindly. His eyes could now see the lies hidden beneath such an idea. Maybe—no! If given the chance, he would hold nothing back and extract revenge for both Nora and his family, but his heart wasn't set in stone. He didn't want to be consumed by such an idea. He's okay executing the idea when the chance presented itself, no other way about it, but it's not going to consume him.

But he had questions. And they had the answers. "What can you tell me about the bandits who killed my family? Who killed Nora's family?!"

The elder sighed heavily, moving away from the wall to walk toward Ren. He waved his hand dismissively. "Unfortunately, not too much, they left as soon as they came. The fighting couldn't have lasted more than an hour, and a lot of us were hiding when the battles began, but I could tell you about the one in charge of the operation. She was a strong woman with raven black hair, eyes as dark as blood, and a katana just as dark that reached for the sky. She was ordering the bandits, coordinating their attack and crippling the village's defenses in a matter of minutes..."

Shiragiku remembered the day like it was yesterday.

...

Bouncing back twelve years ago, on that very faithful day, a younger Shiragiku hid behind a broken stonewall as the sound of battling stopped only minutes ago. Nonetheless, fear gripped the aging man's heart, but he forced his fears down in order to keep the Grimm away.

"Why are your people's eyes dying?! Tell me!"

Shiragiku peered up from behind the stonewall, unable to see the tattered Lie's face from such a distance. The random Lie then smirked when a sudden raindrop splashed on his nose—during possibly the hottest day of summer. Soon more droplets began to fall, suffocating out the nearby infernos in a stroke of bad luck for the intruders—the village would survive this attack and stand as a testament to the bandits' failure. He began to laugh, not stopping even when he coughed out a splay of blood. Only when she struck him did he stop, still, her strike did absolutely nothing to his resolve or pained smirk.

Chuckling, he shrugged painfully. "You're just unlucky, I guess."

Her eyes narrowed as she dug her red katana deeper into the Lie's abdominal. "If you don't tell me what I want to know, your people will die here and now."

Coughing out more blood, the Lie shook his head, smirk permanent on his bruised face. "That's a lie..." he laughed weakly. "It is your people who will suffer. The curse of the Lie Clan will forever blind you to the truth. You'll never be able to see past the lies in front of you... and that'll be your undoing."

 _Ding–dong_! _Ding-dong_!

The man's eyes widened. A tired, victorious smile spread across his face as the sudden rainfall washed away the blood from his body. Blind arrogance shielded him from the woman's glare. Arrogance and sheer luck—a Lie's true ace hidden in their sleeve. The slow ringing of the bell, in the middle of battle, sounded like a timeworn sympathy to the man's dying ears. Slow and rhythmic, it's enough for the Lie to laugh and praise his enemy's ill-fortune.

"Do you hear that? It's The Bell Witch, and it's tolling for you. I would give up now. Your future is set. Your life is forfeited. And when it rings again, your clock's up." The Lie smirked. "For whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."

Her blade pierced deeper. "That's just the gibberish of a dying man."

"Hehe... what's wrong? You aren't afraid of the _Evil Eye_ , are ya? It can see your fear. It can't be tricked."

Her glared could burn metal. "You Lies and your damn arrogance! It's those damn eyes of yours. They've filled your heads with nonsense."

He coughed out more blood, but ignored her quip. "Say what you want. But unlike you, I know your future. And it's riddled with lies. After all..." he trailed, allowing his pink eye to shine in the rain with his fading Aura. "My eye can see past the fantasy, yours cannot. And you want to know something... they never will."

Narrowing in both anger and patience, she pulled her blade out and quickly slashed the man's chest, cutting directly into his rib cage and heart, ending their tirade and tired of his cryptic messages. Even so, as he fell back from the finishing move, his Evil Eye glowed with knowledge, with understanding, with the truth, and with reality.

"I can't wait to see those red eyes of yours bleed the same color as mine. And trust me... it's coming. We're all look forward to it. It's coming."

The Lie dropped dead, a smile on his face, wet with rain. Rain clouds thunder in the background with a harsh wind passing through, ruining the woman's raven mane. Her blood eyes zero in on the destruction around her. Most of her men have been either killed or heavily damaged. At this point the village people could finish them. They have no choice but to retreat. The mission was a failure. Nothing could be gained now. And returning back would prove to be a fruitless and pointless endeavor.

Cutting her katana in the air, an ominous portal of red and black opened up from nothing. She huffed once more, taking a quick peek around, silently hoping she missed no Lie. No such luck! Now she's forced to retreat with nothing to show for it. What a waste of her time and resources. The woman didn't even care if the village fell to the beasts or not.

When she entered the portal a second later, it closed just as fast. Another ring of the bell echoed throughout the cooling village, vibrating a song that started a small coughing fit for the Lie resting on the ground. Shiragiku was afraid to move, unsure of himself. Then the Lie turned his head and glared at him with his Evil Eye, a small smile plastered on his face. He reached out weakly toward the scared man with a shaky palm, begging him to come closer.

"Shiragiku, hurry up." It's only when Shiragiku heard his voice again did he recognize the Lie lying on the ground. His feet couldn't move him fast enough.

Sliding up to the fallen Lie, Shiragiku kneeled down and placed the head of the Lie clan's leader upon his lap, panic and relief marring his features. "Amaro! I for sure thought she killed you!"

Lie Amaro, the head of the Lie clan, a man with pitch black hair, a sleek cheekbone, eyes full of life, and a single streak of pink flowing down between his brows. He was always laughing, seeing the irony in everyday life with a happy challenge. Like most Lies, their body frames were more lithe than muscular. Movement and speed was their ally in battle, not power. That's what the Evil Eye was for. To supply them with an indescribable amount of luck on the battlefield and weaken the enemy forces, that's the power of the Evil Eye.

The dying man chuckled. "Call me lucky, the old kicker's giving me another few minutes." The easygoing smile vanished from his face. In its place was a stern yet concerned look. "Listen, Shiragiku, I'm not going to last long. I need to know... have they found Ren." He shook his head and Amaro's sighed happily. "Good. Then there's still a chance for our clan to survive..." Amaro then smirked with his Evil Eye glowing a hefty shade of pink. "And still a chance for our clan to get revenge on the damn Branwen family and their damn blessed powers."

Shiragiku knew exactly what Amaro meant. Branwen's were known for their blessing and good luck. Occasionally, the head of the Lie clan would even summarize that the Branwen's red eyes could see into the future—the truth. A power that would grant the Branwen's the possibility to foreshadow the future. Foresight was their gift. That meant the Branwen's didn't have the power of good luck, not officially, but they did have the power to create their own luck. With that in mind, having the power of good luck and bad luck almost seemed too good to be true.

And it was.

Just looking at all the destruction around him, all with the goal to acquire a single Evil Eye, which ended up as a brilliant disaster, Shiragiku bit his lip in anger and sorrow. "I'm afraid if I tell him now, he'll go after her. Ren will only end up getting himself killed."

Amaro did a weak laugh. "Then don't. That kid won't follow in our footsteps. Not yet." The Lie smirked one last time. "He's not arrogant like the rest of us. He's got two Evil Eyes, not one, and a good head on his shoulders. Their bad mojo cancels each other out. Lie Ren is the pride of the Lie clan. He'll pull through. I can feel his Semblance all around me. I can see it. He's the very reason the bandits failed."

His friend paused. "Ren? He stopped them from winning? But how?"

A flash of thunder bounced across the town, hiding the disbelief. Amaro simply grinned in victory. "Don't you get it, old friend; his bad luck stopped them before they even had a chance. His eyes are just that powerful. I'm actually glad this happened. Now he can rebuild the Lie clan with even greater strength."

Shiragiku brushed his wet bangs away from his eyes, taking some time to stare up at the falling rain. "What if she finds out about him? There'd be no stopping her."

"... She won't."

"B-But—!"

"Shiragiku... Trust me, she won't." Amaro's Evil Eye glowed in the rain and nothing else. A strike of thunder passed by as the bell's ring vibrated throughout the broken village. Then the pinkish glow slowly dissipated, silently cursing a particular individual before she could make her leave, forever losing its light in the denseness of the heavy rain. "Have I ever lied to you before?"

The man didn't know how to answer such a question. In every way, shape and form, it felt wrong to either say _yes_ or _no_. And even if he could find the truth hidden beneath the lie, it no longer mattered. His old friend had already perished, dying with a smile fit for a king.

What a _bittersweet_ way to die.

...

Ren couldn't keep the twitch in his eyes under control. They glowed with a pathless fury, misguided and lost in the midst of a calm chaos. The elders looked down on with, both with pity and sympathy, but never contempt or anger for bringing a sense of misfortune down upon them. They didn't hate Lie Ren. No. They did not. Their empathy toward him was as real as Nora's laugh. So he couldn't fault them. Not with the truth pushed directly into his face. Not when he had asked so angrily for it.

It wouldn't be fair.

"They were murders and thieves, the worst of the worst!" Shiragiku sighed, full of anger of his own. "Those bandits wanted the power to control your bad luck, dear boy, but their plan failed. And here you are, the last Lie left. And not to mention you have two pink eyes. Not only are you the last one, but you're also the strongest. Greatness runs through your blood. Lady Luck shines down upon you."

Ren scoffed, recounting his clan's scroll. "Greatness is just another word for arrogance. It blinds people."

The elder glared. It's just like Amaro said. "True, Lies are arrogant in nature, always setting their mind to a goal or conclusion and sticking to it, but that doesn't mean they don't hold a spec of truth. The bigger the power a Lie holds, the bigger they are."

"And the harder they fall."

The man waved a hand, breaking Ren's argument in two. "That's where that pesky bad luck of yours comes in. You Lies could always turn a tale with just a spec of luck on your side. All those lies your people make up, with just enough time and stubbornness, turn out true in some way or another. Like Bell Witch..." he remarked. "It hasn't rung since that faithful day. It's waiting for that woman's life to perish."

Ren raised a brow, not believing a word the old man's just said, even if his Evil Eyes spoke a different tale. "You can't be serious. A bell that doesn't ring, there's no such thing."

Laughter filled the room, hollow and dry. "You would think, but what is a bell that does not ring? Tell me that, dear Ren. To hear it ring once more means a life has ended. Everyone else and I in the village have come to believe that. The day those bandits die, it shall ring once more."

Ren didn't believe him. He quickly turned around and walked outside, pulling StormFlower free from his sleeves, aiming to prove this man crazy and release some of his pent up frustration. Without warning, he took aim and fired a few rounds at the Bell Witch, waiting for the audible _clink_ of bullets and the loud, boisterous sounds of ringing. Only when he ran out of his magazine did his eyes widen, shock with disbelief as the village bell remained mute all this time.

He lowered his guns, hands shaking in place as his emotions remained completely scattered. The pink in his eyes have dulled, unable to see any lies afoot. The ninja didn't even need to turn around to know that the elders have followed him outside, waiting for Lie Ren's final verdict. And when his shoulders finally stop shaking do the elders prepare themselves.

Turning around with a practice grace, the collar of the Lore cloak closed up and hid Ren's mouth from view. His Evil Eyes glowed with a haunted look, deeply knitted to the idea of self-sacrifice and revenge. All of his emotions have been stripped away and he moved forward, standing directly in front of Shiragiku with an air of calmness and death.

"You said their names were Branwen? What else could you tell me? I want to know everything."

Waving his hand back toward the meeting room, the elder urged him to follow. "They create their own luck. Their eyes are as red blood. They care for nothing else but their own goals, using others as they see fit."

Ren peered off the soundless bell, questions building. He's remembering that name like a disease. "I still don't understand. How can a bell remain mute? It makes no sense."

"Sorry, lad, I don't know how you Lies work. But I do know you should've thrown logic out the window a long time ago. That's not how your people lived. It easier to believe in the concept of magic in this village."

Ren didn't bother questioning the truth of the story, able to see through all deception now thanks to his eyes being able to see through all illusions, fantasy and lies apparent. All the anger he felt was erased from his soul. Some invisible weight was lifted from his shoulders, not all of it, but some. And for the first time in twelve years, he truly let go of every emotion he locked away in a cage. No longer was he afraid of himself. That monster he saw himself as was starting to fade away, but parts of it still linger around, clawing at his exposed soul.

Stopping before he could walk in, Ren calmly waited patiently for the older man to notice. All the elders stood around him, wondering why he stopped. The collar to his cloak opened up, showing a sad frown that's pulling all the attention away from his depressed eyes. His shoulders this time were slouched, unable any longer to support another weight he'd been holding all his life. And when Shiragiku finally noticed his wavering emotions, he stepped forward, arms ready to either lift or drop the burden from his tired muscles entirely.

Now it's all or nothing.

Throughout this entire ordeal—his entire childhood—he's still reeling over one question. A question that robbed the Lie the ability to mask his sadden and heartbreaking emotions. "So I'm not a monster? It really wasn't my fault mine and Nora's family perished?"

A cold silence filled the air, broken and lasting. Then Shiragiku laughed in an instant. He laughed harder than he had in years, clasping Ren by the shoulders with a grin that rivaled or even surpassed Nora's. That old, angry man from before had long since left the village. Now Ren's dealing with a man who held his emotions on his sleeve and proudly displayed them for all to see.

"Of course not!" Shiragiku announced with such conviction that Ren's suddenly surrounded by happy faces. "A monster wouldn't prevent nasty people from getting their hands on destructive power." The old man smiled gently, making sure to stare at Ren's desperate eyes. "A monster doesn't feel guilt. A monster doesn't protect. And most importantly, a monster doesn't love. I have a feeling that none of those apply to you. You're not a monster, Lie Ren. You're a hero to everyone in this village. If it wasn't for you, everyone would've died that faithful night. I guess what I'm trying to say is... thank you. Everyone here is in your debt. Your parents would be proud and you know that."

Taking a step back, Ren lost his balance, hit too hard by the truth, but he's suddenly held up by hands of the grateful elder. They're fearless of his Evil Eyes. They push him back up effortlessly and surrounded him in a sea of belief and gratitude. And the worst part about it— _the worst part_ —they all remind him of Nora. This was the same unconditional love he was given every day of his life. The same he kept at arm's length all this time.

This entire time he had been lying to himself.

What a fool he turned out to be. "... Nora was right all along." Free from his burden, Ren broke off from the group, heading toward his family's compound with a renewed vigor. "If you would excuse me... I have some wrongs to right."

None of the elders stop Ren as he made his way back to his family's deserted compound, better than when he first broke in. Only now did he see an eye symbol carved into the bell, watching over the hometown of his village with a malevolent glare meant not to curse them with bad luck, but any intruders that happened to invade.

Such was the power of the Evil Eye.

...

Ren's walk back to the hidden room was broken when a horse-like Grimm emerged from the outskirts of the woods, appearing before him with a sinister power in the center of his fallen home. The top of its body featured a skinless humanoid creature with curved horns, an almost sew shut mouth, weapons of forgotten memories skewed to its back, an exposed rib cage and mocking red eyes. The forelegs of the creature resemble claws. Arms attached to the humanoid upper-half were almost elastic. Overall, a fearsome Grimm to run into.

And then it screamed with a broken wail that's waking in absolute power.

Narrowing his eyes slightly, Ren almost scoffed. The damn thing must've picked up on his conflicting emotions. His anger. His sadness. His betrayal. All of it. And now it's here. Here to observe the creature with such contention. Here to pry and judge without reserve. Here to discover and destroy. And sadly enough, it didn't know how to react to the broken man when it finally confronted him, confused, immensely so. The sloth's power protected Ren from attack, shielded him— _hid him in plain sight_. But no human should honestly turn their back to a Grimm. Lie Ren's not so naïve to be the first.

How troublesome.

Lacking passion, Ren brushed off the Grimm's presence with a mere glare. "Go away. You don't interest me at the moment."

It screamed again, louder even. The Grimm apparently made up its mind, telling Ren to suddenly _get interested_ in its appearance. Only problem, the Grimm abruptly found Ren's fingers pressed inside its exposed rib cage, right where its heart's beating quickly. Without moving another muscle, Ren paused, flicking his eyes away from the Grimm's chest to glare at the red eyes glaring back down at him. A tiny bit of bad luck escaped the tips of his fingers, entering the Grimm's heart before it could react, then a mini explosion happened on the left side of the Grimm's chest, pressing down an invisible weight of pressure and pain upon the Grimm's heart. But just as fast as it came, it went away, but not because it got lucky. Ren simply removed his hand and jumped off the body of the Grimm before his bad luck could take hold, sparing the Grimm's life.

 _Now_ Ren turned his back toward the Grimm. "Leave. Now."

The Grimm screamed once more but made no move to follow Ren. It lacked any urge to further push its luck. Not while the human wore garbs worthy of sloth royalty. How such a human came into possession of a Grimm's power remained a mystery to the Grimm. What it did know was to leave and forgo the concept of trouble altogether. Some battles were best left unfinished.

Ignoring the Grimm with relative ease, Ren returned back to the compound, noticing that none of his friends realized he had left yet. They're digging around the abandon compound, looking for the disturbance caused by the Grimm and its loud screech. Ren opted not to bother them, well, at least not Jaune or Pyrrha who seemed eager to burn some calories and energy. He instead searched little to find Nora, who was lost exploring her old home with Sir Scrabbles attached to her neck. Unlike him, she showed no sadness on the outside. Nora remained the constant ray of light piercing the dark cloud of what he called his life.

Determined to make things right, he made no move to conceal his movements, purposely clicking his feet down to draw her attention. When Nora turned around, her confusion was instantly replaced with happiness and she ran up to him, stopping just inside his personal bubble. The second she spotted his sadden expression; Sir Scrabbles peeked up from behind, sensing Nora's contemplative emotions.

"What is it, Ren?"

Ren grabbed her hand, pulling her close. "I have something to tell you." He led her to the nearest stone staircase and quickly sat down. "You might need to sit down."

Humoring Ren's sudden weirdness, Nora sat down with her knees pressed up to her chest with Sir Scrabbles latching onto his neck. It hid within his cloak while the Valkyrie waited for him to get started, wondering what her childhood friend had to say. He's silent for a moment, catching his thoughts as she wobbled in place, mentally trying to find the right words to say.

"So?" Nora stretched, trailing for Ren to catch up. "What's got your hairs twisted up in a bunch, huh? I know you like being Mr. Quiet, but you gotta say something—!"

"Our families weren't killed by my powers, but by some bandits and thieves after my family's eyes." Ren cut in, releasing a strangled breath. He said it as quickly as he could. "My bad luck stopped them from achieving their goals. Turns out the village was waiting to tell us when we got older, but we left before they could."

Nora blinked when Ren took in a huge gust of air, catching his breath after saying that all so fast. She leaned over, eyes wide with exhausted hope. "Really? Do you mean it? Do you really, really mean it?"

The collar of his cloak opened up. He's completely vulnerable under her scrutiny. His emotions and feelings were all left bare for her. "Yes."

Nora held back her excitement, being the clear thinker in this messed up conversation. "How do you know they weren't lying to you?"

Ren smirked, eyes glowing with the telltale sign of victory. "While exploring my old home, I learned that my eyes could see past a fib. If you're lying to me, I would know. You can't lie to a Lie. You could only tell the truth. And all I need to do is add Aura to my eyes."

Nora didn't believe him. "Prove it."

Adding some Aura to his eyes, Ren leaned forward. "Okay then. Try to lie to me."

She crossed her arms, sliding away from his all-knowing smirk. She had one of her own. "It won't work if you know I'm lying, dummy."

"Humor me, Nora."

Nora pursed her lips, still not believing he could read through all lies. Kicking her feet out, Nora hummed her next fray of sentences. "Hn. My favorite color is pink. I think Pyrrha's new weapon is the greatest! Professor Goodwitch is my favorite. Pancakes are the greatest food in the world. I hate it when you and Jaune don't invite me and Pyrrha for some fun. And—!"

"That's a lie." Ren stopped her, building up his smirk a little more when she lets her mouth hang open. The pink radiating around her was as clear as day to his Evil Eyes, catching her in the act. Who knew Aura could solve some of his problems? Never worked before. "Hn? So you do like it when Jaune and I exclude you and Pyrrha from hanging out? Now why is that?"

She squirmed in place, cheeks puffed and fist out. "That's not fair!" Ren didn't say anything, so Nora puffed out air. "Fine! You got me! A girl needs some girl time every now and then. You and Jaune cramp our style."

Ren pretended to take offense to her claim, pointing at himself. " _We_ _cramp_ your style? Jaune and I? Us?"

"Hey!" she cried, poking him in the shoulder. "You two are always so mopey! So sensitive! Even Pyrrha needs a break from you two sad sacks! And..." Nora whispered, looking away. "I don't want you to get... bored of me."

Ren lost his smile, knowing that Nora's not lying. He grabbed her chin and forced her look at him, making sure to touch her forehead with his own. "What are you talking about? I could never get bored of you." Sir Scrabbles peeked out from Ren's shoulder, picking up on the unrivaled happiness leaking out of the Lie's body. "You mean the world to me, don't you know that?"

Nora swiftly shook her head, cheeks reddening quickly in embarrassment. It's the most blatant lie he had ever seen, even he didn't need his eyes to tell him that. He decided not to call her out on it. She still tried to divert his attention by bringing up old news. "See, silly, I told you weren't a monster! You should listen to me more!"

When Nora _booped_ him on the nose with an added small twirl with her skirt, before she ran off to in both embarrassment and to find Pyrrha, Ren allowed his eyes to follow her every step, her every move with subtle and no so subtle interest. Not a single move was missed, nor was the happy smile traced perfectly across her face, all directed and meant for him.

All the missing pieces of his life were starting to come together—all the pieces of _their_ life.

That monster hanging onto his soul was running out of strength.

A perfect smile blossomed across his face. Pink radiated like a warm winter's morning. And his chest felt lighter, much lighter than it had in years. Everything was beautiful and alright in the world, and it was all thanks to Nora's unwavering belief in him—belief he wasn't the monster that stole her parent's lives away from them. And the best part about it was that she turned out to be right! After all this, _she was right_! She was able to see past the lie that was Lie Ren's life. And that made the Lie feel happy. Joy that was unparalleled by any other emotion he ever felt.

Nothing could possibly compare.

Seeing her skip away, Ren couldn't hold back his goofy smile anymore. "I was so scared to what was really standing in front of me all these years. Well, not anymore."

Appearing out from a corner of a broken building, Jaune noticed Ren sitting down and walked over with his hands hidden in his hoodie, interested at the rare smile on his friend's face. "Whatcha up to, Ren, you seem happy?"

Throwing his leader a carefree glare, Ren shrugged nonchalantly, indifferent to his mood. "Oh, nothing, just learning about the truth to mine and Nora's family's untimely demise. I also discovered that my eyes can see through all lies, so there's that. You?"

His Fearless Leader wasn't even surprised. Not one bit. It was a testament to Team JNPR's experience in the field of strange and unreal.

So the Arc sat down next to him instead, kicking away some lone stones with an equally impassive mood. "Me? Same boat? Well, not with the whole truth thing, but I'm good." Jaune waited. Ren said nothing. "So? What actually happened to your family?"

Ren hummed, stretching his legs. "You wanna know? Get Pyrrha first. I'm not repeating myself a third time." Jaune blinked once, surprised at how easy Ren's opening up. Or maybe, maybe they've really grown closer throughout the entire ordeal. "Now would be great, Jaune."

"Oh! Right! Uh, I'll be right back!"

Ren leaned back, laughing lightly to Jaune's scurry. A black butterfly—the same one from before—was crossing his path. Its wings fluttered in the air, flying within Ren's center of vision before flying off to some hidden tombstones in the grass that he didn't notice before. Curiosity quickly grabbed him. His feet pick him up. And he's walking toward the forgotten sight with a casual stride.

Soon a second black butterfly had joined in the mix, both landing on separate tombstones that were right next to each other. When he finally reached the area, there's more than just a couple of graves, but far less than the grander scale in the center of the compound. Nonetheless, they're just as important and Ren found himself kneeling down to get a better look of the aged worn names scripted on the stone. And when he did, his emotions get the better of him.

The pair of black butterflies have landed on his mother, Lie Fa, and father's, Lie Hau, gravestones. They're both tattered with age, broken on some parts, and illegible with whatever inscription that had once been inscribed. The gravestones weren't even standing up straight, slaves to the forces of Mother Nature and the harsh elements. Still, Ren couldn't felt feel his happy emotions washed away.

"Mom... Dad..." Falling to his knees, he felt his heart break into a million pieces. He didn't know what to say. "Hey, uh, it's been a while, huh?" No answer. "Yea, that sounded stupid. Why'd I say that?" A harsh silence filled the void. He sighed miserably. "Sorry for not visiting. It kinda still hurts. I don't think the pain will ever truly go away. But that's no excuse, I know. I hope you're proud of me. I know you're expecting a lot of me and I'll try not to disappoint you."

Crying with silent tears, Ren shut his eyes and bit his lip. His dead emotions rose to power and the Lore cloak did all it could to hold back his Misfortune. He just managed to muster up enough courage to keep himself from collapsing right then and there. Still, the pain never really went away. Now it's just easier for him to channel.

Pink eyes suddenly glow with a fury, contradicting the tears washing down his cheeks. A fist was formed and a deep frown came to life. "I promise you... I swear I will find who did this and _bring them down_. I swear by the forsaken name of the Lie Clan. Misfortune shall fall upon them." The Lies were always a clan that expressed very little and said even less. Why should his family's mourning been any different?

Expressing a smile full of promise, Ren leaned down, grabbing the headstone with care. He wiped away his tears with the sleeve of his cloak. "I must leave now, but I want both of you to know that I love you very much. You both meant the world to me. And I promise to protect Nora with everything I have."

The two black butterflies fly off from the tombstones and land on his shoulder, appearing interested in his intent. They remain there when he finally stood up. They didn't leave when he went to meet both Pyrrha and Jaune. They do, however, make their leave when his friends reach him, flying off to join the other butterflies littering the no longer forgotten graves.

There they wait.

Running up to Ren, Pyrrha had to ask. "Can your eyes really tell if someone's lying?" Ren simply looked over to Jaune, wondering why his leader couldn't wait for him to spoil the surprise.

Jaune held his hands up in defeat. "Don't look at me! I'm still waiting for you to prove it!"

Ren shrugged. "Fair enough. Give it your best shot, Pyrrha."

Pyrrha fidgeted in place, unsure what to lie about. "Uh? My hair's green?"

Ren sighed. "No. It doesn't work if I know you're lying and already know the truth. You have to tell me something that I can't possibly know both ways."

Jaune's about to open his mouth, but Nora suddenly crashed right into him, pressing him down with her arms as she leaned over his hunched body. "Hey, Jaune-Jaune, since you have seven sisters, have they ever made you dress up in silly outfits?! Like maybe a dress?"

Their leader's instantly on the defensive. "What? No! Don't be ridiculous!"

Ren smirked the moment a layer of pink washed over Jaune. He devilishly poked his Fearless Leader on the shoulder. "You're lying."

Knowing his secret's now exposed, Jaune glowed with an impressive mass of white Aura, pointing both his hands toward Ren and Nora with Shooting Stars locked and loaded in just mere seconds. His angry smile was tense at the corners with an ominous amount of danger breaking off his Aura. Nora and Ren barely have time to react before Jaune's pressing the tip of his fingers at their chests.

"Now..." Jaune ordered, warning his teammates with a humorless laugh. "We aren't going to say anything, are we?"

Nora met his challenge head-on, smile teasing. "Or what?"

Jaune removed the barrel of Shooting Star away, but his sudden smirk made her feel hopeless. He glared over to Ren with sadistic intent. "You can't make pancakes for Nora anymore, Ren, Fearless Leader's orders."

Nora gasped, hugging Ren's arm. "He won't be intimidated by such cowardly threats! Right, Ren?!" Ren reluctantly nodded his head, but that only increased Jaune's smirk.

"Oh? Really, Ren? And here I thought you loved reading my Aura notebook, my mistake." Jaune then pulled out an Aura shard, holding it out for Nora to see. "And how else is Sir Scrabbles going to eat without any more Aura shards?"

Sighing, Ren glanced over to Nora, shrugging his shoulders in defeat. "He's got us there, Nora."

"What?! No!" Nora cried, shaking his arm. "We're not licked! Not yet! Maybe if we—?!"

Ren grabbed her arm, stopping her endless shaking. "Nora... he's got us." Nora pouted in defeat. She shook his arm more, mad she couldn't use her new blackmail material.

Meanwhile, Pyrrha's left gasping straws. Sometimes the NPR of Team JNPR forgot how truly powerful their leader was. Here's one such example. Then her leader's looking over to her with a smug smile, easily pointing to the Ice Dust shards behind her back that he _gave_ her. Without another word, Jaune claimed victory with his tactical genius and left the trio behind to dwell in their defeat.

Pyrrha blinked. "What just happened?"

Nora threw her hands up, angry once again. "Our dumb leader cheated again! Ah! It's so unfair!"

Leaving Nora to deal with the unfairness of the real world, Ren returned back to where he first discovered the fault of his life, the graveyard of the fallen Lies. Jaune's already there, reading some inscription of either a Lie or Valkyrie. His eyes were glazed over, probably recounting other moments of family deaths outside their time together. Ren wouldn't put it past him.

Noticing the flock of sudden butterflies littering the tombstones, Ren didn't find it coincidental, he didn't know what to make of it, but he didn't find it odd. The black butterflies? He didn't exactly know what to make of them. As far he could remember, they've always appeared around the compound whatever the weather may have been. And their numbers flocked whenever any individual died, more so when a Lie perished. Could they be part of the Lie clan?

He would deny it. The idea sounded completely ridiculous. What would black butterflies have to do with lies and bad luck? Ren couldn't find a correlation, but he wouldn't shut the door to such a possibility. Life already had thrown him way too many curve balls for such an idea. Monty forbid he missed this next one because of his foolishness.

Spotting the opening to the vault through the main building, and knowing that the clan's secret Lie techniques lie dominant inside still, Ren waved his hand. "I'll be back in a minute."

He didn't wait for a conformation. He simply ventured inside and went to grab the parchment, knowing its uses would be better spent with him than collecting dust, better spent to utilize their full potential against the one who took everything away form him. Now's not the time to be soft-hearted and forgiving to people who didn't deserve it. Such things would prove weak in the current world. He couldn't afford to be weak. Nora couldn't afford to have a weak partner.

Passing the Evil Eye story inscribed on the wall, Ren took a moment to find the irony in the pictures, realizing that their arrogance in believing in the power of the Evil Eye also led to the Lie clan's ultimate demise. Went to show what too much pride could do to a person. Too much of any of the seven deadly sins could destroy a human from the inside out.

Luckily for him, he's protected from such arrogance because he had two Evil Eyes. They act as a diffuser between the two, apparently, a _talisman_ of sorts. He didn't take pride in his bad luck, he limited its influence outside the real world. If anything, Ren's more of a humble person since the day he lost his and Nora's family. He always gave and gave some more, even sparing the lives of others that society would _boo_ at him for, such as Sir Scrabbles or the Sloth King. The sloth Grimm had done more for him than humanity ever had, and judging by all the death and destruction around, more than humanity ever would as well.

Reaching the hidden room, Ren quickly grabbed the secrets buried inside and closed the passage on his way out. He didn't look back on his way out, but he did stop when he noticed the scripture before him.

Hmph, Ren sighed happily. "Now I get it."

On top of wall, leading to the outside, was a stone carving of a black butterfly with a pink pattern that represented the Evil Eye on the top of both its wings. There were symbols of skulls around the butterfly, signifying its importance in watching over the passage of the dead. It's just a fluke that he ran into. Ren didn't even take another moment to stop and enjoy his lucky streak, throwing away curiosity for ignorance for a change. The Lie didn't even notice the other creatures etched onto the other corners of the room, like the crow, the black cat, the scorpion, or the owl—all creatures relating to bad luck in some way, shape or form.

Exiting the compound, he put the scroll away, concentrating completely on his Aura to influence his eyes. They roam over the graveyard before him, revealing the pink of the lie he lived in. His friends were waiting for him to make a move, and Ren didn't disappoint. He closed his eyes for a moment, allowing the truth to wash over him.

No longer was he living a lie.

Eyeing the pink shade surrounding the graveyard, a technique only Ren and not even Jaune could do, he felt remains of his Semblance all around him. And not only that, he could feel other traces of bad luck as well. Aura of his past brethren and family littered the corpses of the almost forgotten. Scars where their eyes were supposed to be maimed the bones. And now he knew the pink before him wasn't only his Semblance, but his eyes telling him what he believed to be true was nothing more than a haunting lie. Fabrications meant to protect but blind him from the truth.

Well not anymore!

Standing in the middle of the graveyard, he thanked Monty he couldn't discern the pile of graves between Nora's parents. Saying goodbye to his folks was one thing, but he wasn't ready to apologize to them yet. So he's glad that they all looked the same. Ren was perfectly fine with that. It's time to move on. But not before checking to see if everything the council said was true.

Concentrating on his Aura, the shade of pink around him became somewhat clearer, and he calmly breathed in. "Mine and Nora's family... weren't killed by me... but by a tribe of thieves and murders after our eyes. My Semblance didn't bring misfortune to my clan... it brought bad luck to the people who murdered them. Someone else killed our clan! I _rained on their parade!_ "

And just like that, all the pink Ren saw vanished without a trace before his very eyes. What remained was the feeling of his Semblance slowly creeping toward him, desperate to return to its host from the fractured remains of his family after such a long. Aura around the corpses, which oddly felt like Penny's Aura to Jaune, gravitated to the Lore that surrounded Ren. Inch by inch, the pink Aura condensed around him, being absorbed partially by him, and the other half by the Lore. The Outer Space around Ren grew in pressure, pushing down a new amount of force for Jaune to feel.

Unable to hold the weight of pressure building down upon him, Ren's forced to kneel down, barely noticing all the black butterflies fluttering about. They reach his cloak and literally dissolve into it, creating a new hue of color in his cloak—a hue of pink that's a mismatched blob at first.

But a shape was being born on his cloak.

The rest of Team JNPR held their breath as the unknown process happened. The only reason none of them ran to help Ren up was because Jaune held them back, observing the phenomenon with acute fascination. He's making mental notes of the Lore interaction with Ren's Aura, keeping tabs on each little change happening within his field of knowledge. And he's holding them back because he didn't know what'd happen if he broke the process, whatever that may be, midway.

Then a glow of pure pink bloomed just as bright as Jaune's Excalibur, forcing even the leader of Team JNPR to shield his eyes from the sudden explosion of light. When the flash of light dissipated, none of the three know what to say.

Nora couldn't believe her eyes when Ren finally stood up. In the front and bottom corners of his cloak was his clan's symbol, pink and anew, clashing terribly with the black of the Sloth King's fur. And not just there, but a few areas of his outfit had the same symbol, covering a good portion of his Lore cloak. Not only that, but when he turned around, Nora could spot the pink coloring lacing the inside of his cloak and one final cloud on his upper back.

It's the birth of a new Lie Ren.

Jaune stepped forward, still holding somewhat a breath. "Ren? Buddy? Uh? Are you okay? How do you feel?"

Ren breathed in the air around him, smiling softly. "Like a missing part of my soul has finally come home."

And he meant every word. It felt like the world wasn't bearing down upon him. Everything about this new power felt like a dream. Semblance completely returned. No longer were his emotions haunting him. No longer was he incomplete. There's no empty feeling in the pit of his soul. He could feel.

He could _feel_!

Filled with happiness, Ren walked across the graveyard, being the only one not to hold his breath as he passed by the final resting place of the Valkyries and Lies. All that was left was an empty compound and broken bones, no longer haunted by the memories and restless spirits of the people murdered here. It's all just memories now.

Now Ren knew the truth on what happened that faithful day. Even if he's filled with contentment for now, he couldn't and wouldn't let go of the hate dwelling inside him. He allowed it to grow. To manifest for the name he hated more than anything, Branwen. But for now, just now, he'd misplace it to share in the joy Nora's suddenly having. She's checking out the newest addition to his outfit, curiosity eternally peaked. And it's not only her, but Jaune as well. He's inspecting his cautiously through Outer Space, eyes half-closed to concentrate on the newest additions to his outfit.

They're so used to miracles that it's not even funny anymore.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the spectrum, Pyrrha shuffled in place, eyeing every headstone with even stronger sadness than from before, maybe even stronger sadness that the others felt ever since Ren revealed the truth to Nora and his family's demise. To think, _people_ did this, _humans_ like this existed, and all for food and supplies. They attacked their fellow human and acted worse than the monsters lurking in the woods. She then peered over to Sir Scrabbles attached to Ren's head, getting even more confused with her inner feelings and desires. And supposedly the Grimm was humanity's biggest threat?

Pyrrha Nikos wasn't so sure anymore.

But now she knew for sure was that humanity could be just as cruel, if not crueler. She had now seen the worst of humanity. Enough at least to make her heavily consider Ozpin's offer to become the next Fall Maiden. If such power fell in the wrong hands, she didn't even want to think of the implications behind it. She couldn't allow such a future to possibly happen, not while she had the power to stop such a problem from happening. She wouldn't allow it.

Never!

Making up her mind, Pyrrha glanced over to her Fearless Leader, believing in those calculated eyes of his. They've solved all problems thrown at him. Perhaps they could solve her problems as well. If only she could tell him what's eating away at her, but a Huntsman was nothing without their word, and Pyrrha Nikos refused to be anything less. Just looking at the graveyard before her only reinforced her will to be a better person than the people who murdered in cold-blood.

But first Pyrrha needed to blow off steam. Just the thought of humans doing this kind of destruction started some fire in the pit of her stomach. It's hot and everlasting. It burned with fury and regret for her fellow human. It fueled off her desire to protect and serve. And sadly enough, she failed to see a reason to hunt down Grimm and exert her pain and ferocity upon them. They've done nothing to entice her undying wrath.

They're innocent in this crime against humanity.

No. She needed a _real_ challenge. Not some two-bit Grimm that's way in over its head. Someone who could give her and her bloody weapons a run for their money! Someone to push her! Someone to make her forget about the filth of humanity and remind her what a kind heart could accomplish in this damned place they called their home! And someone to test her newfound training with what she called her _Blood Work_.

Walking up to her leader, she grabbed him by the arm. "Jaune? When was the last time we sparred?"

They're all taken by surprise from the sudden question, none more than Pyrrha's partner. He tried to count the days since they've last fought, instantly remembering the fight that ended up with Pyrrha's weapon destruction. Even then, he couldn't exactly remember how long ago that was.

"Uh..."

"Too long!" Pyrrha smiled, pulling out Caliburn and Moirázo from her back. The Ice Dust glowed powerfully between her fingers. The blood looked menacing next to her happy smile and flowing hair. "C'mon, partner. We can't let those nights of practice get rusty now, can we?"

Jaune's still not sure what'd gotten into Pyrrha, but it had been a _while_ since he'd last fought all-out, or even trained physically with his Aura. Plus, his partner did get him in a good mood, so he's all for it. And he would be lying if he said he wasn't tempted to push and test the limits of Pyrrha's bloody weapons. Something just stirred in his soul at the implication of using Excalibur. Maybe it's just boredom or restlessness, but he's game.

"I guess not..." Jaune smirked, losing all interest in Ren's recent development like the flip of a switch. "Are you ready to lose, Pyrrha?"

"If I remember correctly, the compound does have a training ground." Ren offered, just as interested as Nora to see them square off. "It might not be in the best condition, but it is away from prying eyes."

Pyrrha hardly heard any of it, _blood pumping_. Puns were so easy. And she's still stuck on Jaune's words. "That's my line."

Sighing to himself, Ren waved them toward the back of the compound, taking the time in the walk to inspect the newest addition to his Lore cloak, the pink undertones and pink clouds that have appeared fascinate him. The clouds look exactly like the Raincloud of Misfortune, and the pink was the same shade of pink in his eyes and streak of hair. Not to mention he felt completely in sync with his Semblance now. It's no longer a suppression feeling, but a soulful one.

Jaune and Ren would just have to figure out the secrets later.

They finally reach the training ground and it's faring no better than the rest of the compound. The area's fully composed of vegetation and dirt. A large wall hid the entire area with a rectangle-like shape, being about ten feet tall on its own. There were cracks on the wall, vegetation and vines sporting through said cracks, and the sun's shining down upon them with forgotten graves resting on the edges of the field. In all, it's larger than Professor Goodwitch's class.

Jaune started to stretch his arm as he made his way to the center of the arena. "This will do."

Pyrrha followed suit. There's a glint in her eyes that spoke more than just a simple sparring match. Not to say Jaune's clueless, he knew that much as well. The confident strut and stretch of his muscles speak of a same confidence.

Watching from the sidelines, Nora jumped on Ren's back, acting very sloth like, being a terrible role model for Sir Scrabbles. She rested her head on one shoulder of Ren's with her tongue out while Sir Scrabbles came out from his cloak and rested on the other. Ren simply lacked emotion when it came to them and Nora's antics.

Grinning, Jaune waggled his finger in Pyrrha's direction. "Last chance to give up, Pyrrha. I am your Fearless Leader." Pyrrha stuck Caliburn into the air and pointed her weapon at Jaune. "Don't say I didn't warn you! Atone, Excalibur!" Holding the Aura weapon with appreciation, Jaune couldn't recall the last he used his weapon. "It has been a while, hasn't it? Let's go!"

Pyrrha smirked and held Moirázo to her chest as she charged at Jaune with a greater enhanced speed. Due to her increase control over blood, the Invincible Girl was slowly learning to increase blood flow and circulation throughout her entire body, supplying her body with an indefinite amount of blood, oxygen, and nutrients as before. It's still a learning process, an idea she picked up from that medical book of hers, but it's one she's going to take full advantage of.

Jaune created a few Aura spheres before absorbing them into his palm. He then charged at Pyrrha, meeting her head on with Excalibur to Caliburn. They clash with forces trying to press the other through the unorthodox substance they call metal. Excalibur burned Caliburn, but Caliburn remained to be cut in two like Miló, fighting heat with cold.

Excalibur burned with the intensity of a thousand suns. Caliburn smothered like the ninth inner circle of Hell. They're both hot in their own special way, but even Jaune's sword's special property to cut through all Auras had hit a wall. Aura kept the blood strong and resilient, but it's her Semblance acting as a shield against Excalibur's might, forming a barrier over the Aura compared to before. Excalibur couldn't cut through a Semblance. And not only that, but Jaune could see her Semblance over every inch of her body, and not just the parts of her body that was covered in metal. Might explain her sudden new found physical strength, her physical power was far greater than the last time they clashed together, but he'd only grown as well.

"You've gotten a lot stronger since the last time we fought, Pyrrha!" Jaune grinned, flicking them both back with a swipe of his Aura sword. He aimed his gun at her, still maintaining that foolish grin of his. "I don't know exactly what you're doing with your Semblance all over your body, but I do know this still hurts. Soar, Shooting Star!"

Pyrrha smiled at the ball of power coming toward her. She held up her bloody shield to intercept the blast, already thinking of a way to contain the force of the explosion and staying power of Shooting Star without causing herself any harm.

Shooting Star collided with Moirázo, but unlike with Akoúo̱, it held up with her Semblance acting as a barrier and she willed the blood to wrap around the orb of Aura, condensing the second-after explosion with a wall of iron that splattered across the battlefield. She had transformed Caliburn into a second shield, protecting her from the blast momentum and explosion.

Sadly enough, Jaune couldn't revel in the power of his Aura-based attack; it's just a waste of Aura at this point. Pyrrha's simply reforming the shield back to the way it was by willing all the spilled blood to condense back into her shield. He couldn't even marvel in that before she's charging at him, doing a quick swing with her sword to his chest.

He held up Excalibur to intercept the strike, but was taken back when Pyrrha's swing managed to push him back a foot. Then, midway into the swing, her shield had turned into her Spear of Destiny and she's thrusting it forward, right for his opening with Excalibur still holding back Caliburn. Jaune's forced to bring up his other hand and crash a sudden Supernova to blast the weapon away with both him and Pyrrha taking the full blunt of the aftermath, except he's unaffected by his Aura abilities and ended up getting a better footing on the ground.

Pyrrha got neither.

She flew through the air, using her Semblance a moment later to flip herself in midair and use a nearby grave to bounce herself back into the spar. She formed Caliburn and Moirázo back together, flying through the air with a velocity fitting for a speeding bullet. And then she brought up her sword and aimed to bring it down on Jaune's shoulder.

When her Fearless Leader managed to parry the move, his eyes widen when he got pushed down into the floor, forming a small crater beneath his feet from Pyrrha's strike. Her swing was out of this world! By concentrating on not only the iron in Caliburn, but her own blood as well, Pyrrha did a slash surpassing her old one by miles. It didn't hurt that her control over her Semblance was far greater than what it once was.

She's then using her still midair momentum to flip over Jaune's body, using the stun-collision between Excalibur and Caliburn to her advantage, which gave him barely a chance to defend himself as Pyrrha kicked his neck in midair, before turning Moirázo into a second Caliburn and slashing him across his back. He did counter, however, by using his free arm to create a second Excalibur, which he ended up throwing his arm back to land a sloppy cut on her forearm. The move stunned her just long enough for Jaune to turn around and land a quick Supernova to her Semblance protected body.

"Burst, Supernova!"

 _Boom_!

...

Nora couldn't hold back her excitement. Her hands were thrown up high. "Whoa! Look at them go! Pyrrha stands a much better chance now!"

"She's like a Blood Demon..." Ren remarked offhandedly, watching as the Invincible Girl commanded the blood with almost practice ease to cushion the blow from the closing wall. She still had a long way to go before she mastered the ability, but it's undeniably levels beyond her past performance. How much practice did she get when they were gone? A little under three days couldn't have given her that much? "She's not giving Jaune a chance to breathe."

"Not like our Fearless Leader needs it!" Nora _booped_ , unable to stay still on Ren's shoulders even for a split-second. "He's really, _really_ strong!"

Ren didn't bother commenting, just as interested in the fight as Nora. Hard to believe those were the same two people from the beginning of the year. Funny enough, Pyrrha's probably one of the few people who could clash directly with Jaune and his Aura abilities without worrying about the repercussions of such collisions—Nora and him included. After all, only Team JNPR knew the weaknesses of Jaune's Aura abilities.

Everyone else in the Vytal Tournament better watch out.

...

Jaune watched as Pyrrha stood up easily enough from the explosion, having used blood as a way to cushion the blow at the last possible second. She really showed her improved, that much was obvious. Those few days when Ren and he were gone, she must've been practicing almost non-stop. Jaune couldn't think of anyone else who could show so much improvement in such a short period of time.

Not only that, the one cut he managed to land on her forearm didn't bleed, like at all. He could see through Space that the Aura's not reaching or reacting to that spot, so nothing's wrong with Excalibur, but he could also see her Semblance hard at work on where the cut had occurred, making the cut as useless as common sense in Team JNPR. Meanwhile, his cuts were healed in no time due to his large Aura levels and control, but he's still overly impressed with Pyrrha being able to stop the blood from leaking out. And then there's her damn weapon.

For a weapon to be able to change its shape and state of matter in the blink of any eye, well, not even Jaune's Aura abilities could do that. And her cutting power was leagues apart from before. When it came to destructive force and power, Aura reigned supreme! When it came to velocity and speed, supposedly blood and Pyrrha Nikos reigned supreme.

Going on the offensive, he narrowed his eyes and charged first this time, lunging forward with Aura powered muscles. He gripped Excalibur tight in one hand and had a second Excalibur ready in the second. Jaune then grinned as he shortened the distance, glowing brightly in an armor of snow. Pyrrha glared and met his opposition head-on, clashing both her bloody weapons with his, holding them apart with wide arms to leave both their bodies exposed.

Smirking, he brought his foot up and kicked her shield of her hand, using the momentarily distraction to raise the second Excalibur underneath Pyrrha's Caliburn. Before the champion could react, he's resetting his last attempt to cut through Caliburn, this time working both ways to cut her blood-soaked weapon. Time seemed to slow down as Excalibur traveled down and crashed with Caliburn.

 _Slash_!

Jaune smirked largely as half of Pyrrha's weapon spun in the air, leaving her only with half a blade and no shield. He enjoyed the way her eyes wideed, but his joy was cut short when Pyrrha suddenly smirked, throwing up the broken half of her sword to the other half of Caliburn in midair, effectively cutting off Aura to the Ice Dust shard and reconnecting the two pieces together with relative ease. Then she's calling back her shield, breaking apart and reforming the blood with the same level of difficulty. And Jaune's forced to kick her stomach and jump back before she could land a solid cut on his torso from the surprised action.

Taking a step back, he glared through Space, watching as the cut he did to the Aura within Caliburn prove to be utterly hopeless. It didn't matter if he cut the Aura currently supplying Caliburn with power. Pyrrha could just rearrange the blood to replace the Aura cut like nothing happened. The white-hot, burning sensation Pyrrha mentioned experiencing was all naught. First of all, that Ice Dust was keeping the heat down to a minimum. And second, it did nothing. Pure and relentless _fire_ did nothing to Pyrrha's weapon!

It's impossible to break her weapon! No amount of heat could ever fully destroy Pyrrha's weapon.

How did one break a weapon with no true form?

Jaune didn't know. And he's not given time to figure out the problem. She's charging at him with a relentless pursuit that would have any other classmen already forfeiting, but not him, not her partner and Fearless Leader! He had been through too much to be beaten like this, too much to simply give up when the going got tough. Truth be told, this was where Jaune Arc shined like a radiated star in the confines of space.

Charging forward, he skid to the left and then right and then left again, confusing Pyrrha before she could properly react. By using two swords, he pressed each one to her sword and shield, effectively pushing them apart, allowing him to lean in to give Pyrrha a hard head-butt.

"You're blood control has really gotten better, Pyrrha." Jaune smiled during the head-butt. He then kicked her squarely in the stomach, still grinning. "I'm jealous."

Pyrrha smirked, swinging Caliburn from quite a distance. Jaune barely realized what's happening before he's forced to bring up Excalibur to block her incoming whip of blood. The definition's gone from the sword, but what it lacked in sturdiness, it made up for in length and razor cutting edge. Then things take a turn for the stranger when the blood whips broke on the edge of his Aura blade and reconnected mid-flight, heading toward his defenseless body. The whip ended up cutting him on the arm before following through with a cut across his chest and back, and then reconnecting at the base from the other side of his body.

After she landed such a hit, she willed the blood and refocused it back into a sword, grinning with a smile that would make Yang proud. "Thanks, Fearless Leader. I've been practicing while you were gone."

Jaune laughed silently, mumbling only to himself. "Damn blood is as hard as iron... but it flows like water." At least he now understood what it felt like to be cut by Pyrrha's weapon. Darn thing's so cold that it burned, but his Aura's already taking care of the damage. Too bad it couldn't do anything about the freezing sensation. It's outside of Aura's influence. Forming a fist, he ran forward. "Hn! But can you stop this?"

Jaune opened his fist to reveal a single Supernova and Pyrrha's confused. Of course she could handle one Supernova, what did her leader take her for—?!

"Illuminate, Quasar!"

A bright light shined across the whole compound, blinding everyone but Jaune from the intense beams. He's running up to Pyrrha, who's busying holding her weapons up as a way to shield herself from the light, and then flicked away her defense with a practical ease before cutting her clear across the torso, except he's stopped midway when Pyrrha grabbed the edge of Excalibur, using her below freezing blood—Caliburn—as a glove to grab the burning blade.

The cold kept it from evaporating.

Jaune's stunned from the tactic. It's the same one he used against her the first time they fought. And she's taking full advantage of the opening by bringing Moirázo down, while still using the shield as a way to block out the intense light, and crashed the frozen shield right into Jaune's chin. The action pushed him away and offered her a small opening to deliver a messy cut across his torso. With the light messing up her vision, that's the best she could ask for. But her efforts were all in vain when she found his fingers pressed to her upper chest, where her heart resided. And even if she knew her Semblance acted as a barrier to shield her, she's not so sure she could take a point-blank shot from Shooting Star. Not to mention her leader's Aura control had only gained experience since the last time they fought.

The light show ended finally, so Pyrrha could see his head still titled back, exposing only the light smirk playing his features. There's blood falling down his chin, coming from the base of his bloody smile. He laughed and put pressure on her beating heart with the tip of his index finger, willing away Excalibur to conserve Aura.

"It's my win."

Stunned for a minute too long, Pyrrha pouted. Now they're tied. Never before had her champion pride taken such a blow as this. Only worse since her Fearless Leader had such a smug grin and failed to remove it, even when he tilted his head to look back up at her. The damage to his jaw was already healed and he's wiping away his blood, throwing the excesses amount onto the floor.

Jaune's then smug grin was wiped away when Nora jumped on his shoulder, hanging dangerously off his head as he fought to maintain balance. She's asking a million questions all at once, making it impossible for the Arc to answer anything without getting tongue-tied answering the first two. They're question he'd answered before, but Nora had never been one to shy away and ask the big questions more than once. She'd ask until she ran out of breath and then some.

Laughing to herself, Pyrrha looked down at the blood of her leader and willed it to her shield. It made her happy. "Waste not, want not."

"You were training when Jaune and I..." Ren coughed, walking up toward her. "Were away at the beach?"

Pyrrha tilted her head, blinking once. "I thought it was a road trip?"

"Uh, yea, road trip, that's what we did." Ren answered in haste, nervous for the first time in a while. The emotion's gone before she could truly spot it. "So you learned to control your blood at a much faster pace."

Pyrrha smiled, holding up her bloody weapons for Ren to see. She changed their shape with relative ease. "Pretty much. I'm still learning the ins and outs of it all, but I think I have the general gist down. It's not so hard once you figure out how to move the iron molecules. You see, blood has a chemical formula that's not exactly a formula and—!"

Ren held a hand up, smile warm. "Whoa, timeout, Pyrrha. Science isn't really my area of expertise. I'm more of a superstitious guy." Sir Scrabbles popped out of his collar, hugging Ren's neck. "Me and logic don't mix too well."

Pyrrha laughed with her palm blocking the smile, hitting Ren on the shoulder. "You and Jaune both! Nora and I seem to be the science-y ones in the team."

If Ren's ever heard a haunting thought, it's that one.

"There you guys are!"

All of Team JNPR stopped in their rant to see Professor Goodwitch walking up toward them, not exactly angry, but exactly happy to see them. She's holding a file, taking each step that was filled with poise and purpose. She appeared uninterested with all the destruction, probably thinking it was there beforehand, but her eyes do land on Miss Valkyrie, so she already had some vague idea on what might've happened. Nonetheless, Glynda moved forward and gave them each a paper from the file she's holding.

"I've been searching all over for you. I had to have some civilians point you out. But now that I have found you four, this will be our mission," Glynda said, handing out assignments of cleanup duty. "Our mission is to get this village back up and running, and clean up any damage too intensive for normal civilians work. Any Grimm we encounter along the way must be dealt with immediately. The elders have even supplied up a place to stay for the duration of the mission, which is where I found you. This broken down compound will be our residence for the next few days."

Nora sulked, dangling her arms from the top of Jaune's shoulders. "That doesn't sound like much of a mission."

Glynda hid a small smile. "Not all missions are filled with excitement and danger, Miss Valkyrie. Even the little things could make a difference. For example..." she threw the file at Nora and the bomber failed to react on time. That ended up with her falling off Jaune's shoulders from her sudden, ecstatic movements. "I used paper to bring you down. I hope you learned a lesson. Thank Oum there's no paper Grimm around or you'd be in big trouble."

Nora glared up from the floor, unable to forget Glynda's smug, teacher-like grin. "I hate learning."

Clapping her hands together, Glynda moved forward with her riding crop and began using her Semblance to clean up the broken stones and weeds from the floor. Ren's not sure if he should tell his professor that this was the resting place of Nora and his families, yet, at the same time, he honestly didn't mind too much. They didn't live here anymore, and the compound did still belonged to the village. Maybe they'd use was for other families to live in one day.

Who knew? It no longer mattered to them.

Jaune moved closer to Pyrrha, whispering next to her ear. "Professor Goodwitch is a totally different person on a mission."

Pyrrha whispered back. "I think anyone would be happy to get out of that stuffy classroom and away from our Headmaster."

Her leader looked at her curiously, wondering where the spew about the Headmaster came from, but Professor Goodwitch was glaring at them to move it. So he forgot about it. Figuring that Pyrrha's humor could still use some work, never knowing the actual truth behind her words.

...

The rest of the day's spent up cleaning with trash while the professor fixed buildings with her Semblance. Even with four Huntsmen-in-Training and a Semblance that could levitate, they barely managed to break a dent in the amount of cleanup needed to be done. Easy mission? Nope! Nora was totally wrong. It was almost back-breaking labor. And Jaune and Pyrrha proved to be somewhat lazy after just sparring to their limits.

Mistakes on their part, but people live and learn.

At least Ren managed to hide Sir Scrabbles from Glynda's prying eyes. Although, that might be more because she noticed the change to his outfit more than they did, but that was neither here nor there. And luckily enough, Jaune's Aura took care of his cuts and bruises while Pyrrha's Blood Work managed to up her healing process. Didn't hurt she still had a good reserve of Aura left to clean up any bruises or injuries.

Now that the excitement of the day was dying down, Jaune's inquiring again to Ren's backstory, needing more of the juicy details to satisfy his ravenous hunger. Both Pyrrha and Nora were in the same boat so they stay up late and head toward the nearest restaurant to get some food, leaving their professor behind in the room given to them from the elders. Ren told them everything, leaving no detail out, like the name of the family responsible for Nora and his parent's untimely death. He's angry, there's no two ways about it, but Nora's on a different boat entirely, appearing happy and not so bent on revenge like Ren was.

Pyrrha and Jaune decide not ask about it, and Ren didn't pry for now. The day was already stressful enough.

Returning back to the building they're staying at, the team abandoned most of their clothes to hit a nearby stream they found, interested in getting clean. Professor Goodwitch told them not to take too long, lights out was at ten. And the moment they leave, her eyes fall upon Ren's Lore cloak.

What followed next was the need to squash any impulse to go and touch it. She managed to last about half an hour before her needs get the better of her, forcing her to put down the paper work she had been working on to distract her nosy, hungry mind.

"Just one touch and I'll get it out of my system."

It would be a wasted lie to say she wasn't interested in the odd fabric. Whatever curious hunger she possessed previously had only been starved after spotting the newest addition of pink clouds on the outside and a pink undertone within the inside. The pink inside almost glowed in power, contrasting heavily with the pitch blackness. Then she's focusing on the black overtone entirely, running her bare fingers across the cloth, immediately realizing said material was anything but yarn or wool.

It's nothing like normal fabric that much she knew. Fur clothing normally had a distinct feature of being messy, even when tamed. This had no such issue. Here, the hairs remained stuck together, flat and clean as a tailored shirt. It's smooth, slick to the touch, and Glynda s awno stitching of any kind to hold the hairs together. Gravity defied the hairs, pressing them down with an invisible force that she couldn't see, almost as if the cloak she's holding had its own gravity itself. The sleeves have a length that reached to his wrist with the bottom of the cloak moving just passed his knees. And then there were the pink clouds.

There's no hair or yarn at all. They're nothing more than pink clouds on a stitchless cloak. How they came to be, she didn't know and wouldn't be able to answer if asked. They're just there. Just another mystery, like how it possibly opened up. She found no zipper, but she knew it partially opened when she had cleaned up that food fight of theirs. So thinking it logically, there had to be a way to open it up, but the professor saw none.

Glynda wouldn't have even been able to _tell_ the cloak's made out of fur if she hadn't actually touched the fabric. To her, and perhaps to anyone else not looking hard enough, the cloak's one black oddity with several pink clouds—one on the chest, three on bottom half, and one on the back. If she didn't know better, she would think the article of clothing was messing with her. She's not too into superstition, but even she knew that five was considered both good and bad luck in some cultures. And Glynda felt like she was on the wrong side of the spectrum when glaring at the cloak, as if she's on the receiving end of the bad luck while the wearer was protected from such curses, surrounded by a cloak of good luck that pushed away the bad.

Of course that's just an insane way of thinking on her part. There's no way that the article of clothing represented any symbolic attributes such as good and bad luck. It's just a piece of clothing for _Monty Oum's_ sake. Nothing more and nothing less!

Then again, the professor would admit to some slight envy for Lie Ren possessing such a one-of-a-kind fabric. Her student owned a fur cloak that was smoother than ice and felt just as cold.

Just for curiosity sake, Glynda tried lightly to pull the cloak open, thinking perhaps there's buttons she couldn't see. To her dismay and eternal confusion, the cloak did not open up. It remained closed, even when she added more force. Nothing happened. And before she realized what she's doing, she's trying—with a considerate amount of effort—to pull or tear the cloak open. But again it did nothing. It did not budge. It did not tear. It didn't even stretch. Glynda's _this_ close to believing that the cloak's being held together by an invisible force, by some powerful gravity that was unlike anything she'd ever witnessed. And before she could test her Semblance on the clothing, the door to their room was being jingled open.

Throwing the cloak back down onto her student's bed with a practice graced, she's not surprised to find all of Team JNPR entering their sleeping corridors, appearing worse for wear. On the plus side, it appeared that they all look happy, especially Jaune and Ren. Those two had small smiles that were impossible to conceal. Then her inquisitiveness was peaked when Ren moved to grab his cloak.

Glynda watched out from the corner of her eye, completely enthralled by her student's movements, appearing totally nonchalant about everything. There's no way he's going—eh?!

Glynda Goodwitch allowed her eyes to widen. Lie Ren just casually opened his cloak without the slightest hint of trouble! Not a single move was wasted. The cloak just opened up. But what finally threw her off guard was the way it closed up when he fitted it on, all automatic and blasé. Only the collar remained open. And none of it made any sense to the seasoned Huntsman. She'd never encountered such an odd piece of clothing. Weapons were one thing, but her nerves were all over the place when she glared at that ominous piece of wear.

And for a second, just a split-second, she swore the article of clothing glared right back.

What's going on?

She had questions, many of them, but with no way in asking them without sounding meddlesome.

Such a bothersome.

...

It's nearing lights out. Most of everyone had fallen asleep, Jaune and Pyrrha especially after their fight. All that's left was Ren and Nora. And Nora's busy humming in the darkness, feeling better about the whole monster thing, while Ren's conflicted about the truth. Now that his teammates and professor weren't here to distract him, he's given plenty of time to ponder over the fabrications he'd come to live his life by. After all this time, Nora's words were finally sinking in.

He's not a monster.

Sighing to himself for the unknown time, he peered over his shoulder to glare at the full moon through a broken window. A temptation pulled him outside. His feet get the memo first before his brain. And Lie Ren found himself outside, basking in the glow of the moonlight shining down upon him. He didn't even know why he's outside. Temptation's a strong mistress.

"Whatcha up to, Ren?"

A quick turn revealed Nora hanging beside his person, hands hidden behind her back. She's swaying in place, a smile full of hope and innocence that made Ren want to take a picture in order to preserve the memory. How she managed to sneak up on him with her loud tenancies was a mystery he wouldn't ever be able to solve.

Enjoying her company, Ren smiled and looked across the compound with a newfound sense of belonging. "Nothing. Just enjoying the full moon tonight. You know it is Monday. That means it lucky. There's even a story that said Lady Luck herself was born under a full moon. Did you know that?"

Nora hugged his arm. "Of course I knew that, silly!"

Ren smirked, eyes full of wonderful mischief and a healthy glow. "You're lying."

Nora did a cute pout, crossing her arms in anger when she realized how he called her fib. "That's not fair! Those dumb eyes of yours are just like Jaune! You're both cheaters now!"

His eyes closed in a perfect smile. He'd been smiling a lot lately. And he's not the only one to notice. Learning the truth could do that to a person. Who would've thought? And Ren didn't really seem to mind it as much. Life had been both good and bad, the good times more than the bad, but the bad times were still there, lurking just in the darkest corners of his mind.

Throwing a cautious glance over his shoulder, he spotted the Bell Witch at the center of the village with the Evil Eye watching over the unfortunate townspeople. He lightly recalled the story behind its silence, soaking in the information with intense observance.

"What's wrong, Ren?"

Finding Nora catching him off-guard, Ren just now realized he had been staring at the bell tower with a pure look of hatred and expectation. He quickly looked away, wiping his own hair with his bangs. Then his eyes land on the pink strand hanging in front of his face, and he had little choice but to sigh, effectively killing the mood.

"I've learned that there's another Lie out there. The bell tower has been cursed with a Lie curse, effectively robbing it of sound. Only a living Lie could do that." Ren hummed. "And I know I didn't charm it."

Nora hugged his arm tighter, ecstatic. "That's great! More family!" When Ren failed to smile she stopped smiling. "This _is_ great, isn't it?"

He broke Nora's hold, tearing his eyes away from accursed bell tower. "I don't know. What if my presence jeopardizes their existence? I could end up causing more trouble if they're trying to live a normal life. It might not be worth even finding them. What if those bandits find them? What if—?!"

Angry with him, she frowned and grabbed Ren's hands roughly, forcing them together before he could so much as protest to what she's doing.

 _Clap_!

Her _clap_ vibrated with the intensity of _thunder_. It echoed across the entire courtyard, silencing all the insects around them. It's uneven, a single clap with a clear sky right between his own hands. The pain's then numbed when her fingers found themselves gently holding his own.

"Every time you think badly about yourself, I want you to clap! Okay!" Nora demanded with fire in her voice. "Think of it as a good luck charm! Not bad luck, but good luck." She rubbed her fingers between his, smiling gently. "And I know you're scared, but you've always been scared. And I know you're mad. I'm mad, too. I'm really, really mad at the people who attacked our family. But I'm not mad at the village too weak to fight back, they did what they did to survive and protect us."

Ren's completely lost, unsure what to say. "Nora..."

"We don't have to find your family if you don't want to. That's fine. But I want you to promise me you'll be there for them if they ever need your help, like how you've always been there for me, but only if bad people are going to hurt them. Promise me." She gripped his hands roughly. "Promise me now! Because I know you'll beat yourself up if you end up turning your back on them. I know you will. You're so good at it! _And_ _I'm_ _sick of it_!"

Ren's taken back by her declaration, the tears in her eyes were only weakening his resolve. However, it's not like he ever stood a chance to Nora's demands to begin with. She'd always been the syrup to his pancakes. The sugar to his sweet! The rhythm to his beating heart. Nora's everything and more. And Lie Ren wanted nothing more than wipe away the raindrops leaking out her eyes.

 _Because no raincloud was complete without its lightning bolt._

Smiling once more, Ren leaned forward and rested his forehead on hers. "Thank you, Nora. I promise." Nora grinned like the sun and tried to break free out of Ren's hold, but found her fingers stuck between an interlock with his. She slowly looked down at them, and then back up to Ren's blushing face. "You know Nora; I'm not as clueless as Jaune is. Do you think I don't see the way you look at me? Because guess what, I do, I've noticed it for years. You're a terrible liar. You always have been."

Sir Scrabbles popped out of Ren's collar, being lulled to awake by the female's scattered emotions. The Grimm then found its disbelief thrown out the window when it sensed _certain_ emotions coming from the male! And it thought _impossible_! For a human to have hidden any emotions from a Grimm all this time was unheard of! How could the male hide in plain sight?

"Ren..." Nora breathed, knees starting to shake. This couldn't be happening. _This couldn't be happening_! She's going to faint!

"Now that I know the truth about everything... I'm no longer afraid. And maybe, _maybe_ I'm being a little selfish now, because you're still too good for me and I don't deserve anything you've ever given me, but I'm willingly to try everything to make sure you're happy for the rest of your life." Ren carefully grabbed her by the waist, capturing her eyes in a sea of pink. Her favorite and most cherished color. "Nora Valkyrie... do you _love-love_ me?"

Feeling all the blood rush up to her face, Nora squirmed pathetically in Ren's hold, answering the only way she knew how with eyes as large as the moon shining down upon them. "That's! Not! Fair!"

And he kissed her under the moonlight.

* * *

 **Author Notes:** Don't expect the next chapter to be around 21,000 words, I just didn't want to break this chapter up into two. Also, in case it you didn't know, Violet, the adventures of Jaune, Ren, Sun and Neptune as the Treacherous Quadruple, has been written, and this concludes Lie Ren's arc.

 **Jaune Arc** **–** Arc Complete

 **Nora Valkyrie –** Arc Incomplete

 **Pyrrha Nikos –** Arc Incomplete

 **Lie Ren** – Arc Complete

Cover Art – **Exvnir**

Edited **\- 1/17/2018**


	20. Grey

**Disclaimer:** I own nothing of RWBY.

* * *

 **Grey**

 **By: Imyoshi**

Nora Valkyrie's dreaming.

A beautiful, wonderful, ever-fantastic, perfect-perfect dream, but a dream nonetheless. She should know. She'd dreamed this kiss for far too long for it to be anything else. One point in time had her counting the days for her dream to come true, but those eventually blurred into an ever waking nightmare, where everything she wanted was just out of arm's reach. Partially out of fear, but mostly awkwardness always held her two steps back from making the first move.

In her dreams, Ren's always the one pulling her in. Just like now. And like clockwork, she waited. Waited for it all to come crashing down in a bedridden disappointment that would break her into a million, bite-size pieces. And all she would get out of it would be a broken heart.

Any second she's going to wake up in her bed, possibly with Sir Scrabbles wrapped around her neck, with zero lip-to-lip contact. She just had to bind her time and wait. Any second now, any second and it'd all be over.

Whoa? She'd normally wake-up by now.

Reading her mind, Ren smiled devilishly into the kiss, whispering the words right on Nora's lips. She tasted like maple syrup. "By the way, Nora, this isn't a dream."

Nora blinked, heat rising throughout her body. There's this air of dizziness surrounding her from Ren's words, like she's going to faint any second. She broke off the kiss, hearing the words leave his lips like a song. Then, like a catchy tune, she found herself repeating the lyrics.

 _By the way, Nora, this isn't a dream._

Not a dream? Not. A. Dream. Then?! His lips and hers were?! They're?! K-Kissing!

Based on the way Ren was smiling flirtatiously down at her, she gulped. Alarms were going off in her head. Code red! Code blue! Code whatever color! This was not a dream! Repeat! This was not a dream! Someone wake up the captain! They're losing her! There's overheating in sectors one and two! Three was not too far away! Her future king was right here!

Time for the ultimate test to prove once and for all if she's dreaming!

 _Pinch_!

"Ow!" Nora grumbled, rubbing her aching cheek. "That hurt!"

Ren smirked, enjoying the way realization hit Nora like Magnhild to the knees. "Here, I'll kiss it and make it better."

 _Smooch_!

Breaking off the sneak kiss, Ren hid back a joyous laugh to Nora's weakness to flustering-romantic moments. He chalked that up as adorable and smiled handsomely at her, eyes closed and glistening in the moonlight. Not to say he never knew Nora wasn't prone to being embarrassed, when suddenly given even the smallest ounce of affection—because he'd been paying close attention all these years—but it's still amusing in its own right. Poor Nora must be short-circuiting from it all.

Ren's really going to milk this moment for all it's worth.

He went in for another, but Nora stopped him by pressing her palm to his cheek, already beating herself up for doing so dumb. Even now, her muscles refused to give her the strength needed to hold Ren back for long, wanting that sweet, tantalizing romance, but she did give it her all. She pushed him away, flustered with her arms pressed to her chest where her heart's thumping wildly. Her breathing's heavy, but in a good way, like he somehow stole her breath away.

Maybe he did.

She's denying everything because it's too good to be true. "It's not true! You don't love-love me!"

Ren blinked with such innocence that Nora found herself melting. "It is. And I do. Do you need me to say it again?" He moved closer and trapped Nora with a greedy hug where she's forced to look up and meet his perpetual affection. "Because I will, I will say it every day if you want me to. Do you want me to, Nora? Do you want me to say I love-love you every day? How about every morning after you wake up, and every night before you go to bed? I promise to say it."

Her eyes were wide and hopeful. "... This isn't really a dream... you really do love-love me?"

Ren rolled his eyes in a playful way. "Do you want _me_ to pinch you? I'll make sure to pinch the other cheek, so I can kiss that one, too." He paused, hating the idea of hurting even one hair on her beautiful head. "Or I could just kiss you and let you figure out for yourself? I can't be doing all the work now."

Wanting nothing more in life, Nora's throat's too dry to form words. So she desperately hoped her timid nod was enough. Please be enough!

Her gut said _yes_. Her soul yelled _yes_. Her heart _screamed_ _yes_. Which meant the answer must be _yes_. A hundred times _yes_! It did help that he wore that adorable—handsome—dumb smile of his. It's not fair! _Not fair_ she said, blushing like a peach! She's totally not ready for Ren to make her the center of his world, at least not like this!

How could she not be prepared for this day?

Wow! How cliché! She'd waited for this moment all her life. Prepared for it! Planned for it! Even dreamed of it! Yet, Nora's nowhere near ready for it when it finally did actually happen. All she could give her lover boy was a pair of shaking knees and her unbalanced weight, because she'd long lost the strength to hold herself up.

So much for thunder-thighs!

Unlucky for her, Ren didn't seem to mind holding her up, not only used to it, but actually wanting to feel her pressed close. He had that charming smile of his, mixed in with his forehead pressed to hers, and with eyes only meant for her. Not to mention he had his hands wrapped gently, but _firmly_ around her back. So Nora's forced to rest her hands on his chest with her body pressed closely.

Jerk!

Stop being so overly romantic! Cut it out with the sugary sweetness. No more chocolate kisses! She's not used to it! It wasn't fair! How's she supposed to do anything when it felt like her soul was flying over the moon? Her feet might as well be floating off the ground for how happy she was.

Lie Ren found it funny. Nora's currently an emotional burnout, while he's overloaded with emotions, a complete one-eighty to their normal status-quo. Just kissing her had caused her thinking process to come to an abrupt halt, while he's more grounded and eager to push the realm of normalcy out the door. The effect's only temporarily, he knew that, but he's going to savor every moment of it.

Some say lightning never strikes twice, well; those people never kissed Nora Valkyrie. And as long as Lie Ren's breathing, they never would. His affection for Nora was like a message in a bottle, one-of-a-kind in a sea of emotion. No matter how hard the tides tried to sink the bottle, they'd forever remain adrift, mocking normalcy for all it's worth.

Busy feeling each of their nerves coming to life, neither Ren nor Nora paid any attention to their little companion hiding in Ren's collar. Not to say the sloth Grimm felt left out, the tiny creature was still trying to wrap its head around the waves of emotions bearing down on it, and from both humans no less. Then the king's subject was kissing the Fair Maiden and the whole order was thrown out the window.

Sir Scrabbles gawked at the male human, caught off-guard from the Lie's unexpected truthfulness. Bravery such as that should be rewarded. Boldness for such actions couldn't be taken lightly. Heretic to even consider! And judging by the way the Fair Maiden deepened the kiss, if not a little unsure in the act, it looked to be so. Perhaps, in the near forthcoming, shall its caretaker go by Lady?

Now that's a future Sir Scrabbles wished upon the newly couple. Truly, a marvelously and perfect day! The full moon shined down upon the duo like a spotlight meant for them and only them, with Sir Scrabbles as the witness to their blossoming happiness. How it wished it could tell its sire the good news. But for now, Sir Scrabbles would observe and watch. Reporting to its king would come later.

What the tiny Grimm could see was the devoted smile pressed against the Fair Maiden's lips. The female's still blindsided from the courtship, an obvious reaction, Sir Scrabbles would expect no less.

When Ren broke away from the third kiss, he's feeling giddy. "Love-love you."

Nora's still not there yet. Part of her still thought this was some crazy dream. "Gah! Stop saying that! Stop it!"

Ren smiled. "Okay, but I'm still thinking it."

Nora squirmed, hating how much she _missed already_ hearing those stupid, three words of his. Pressing her fingers together, she shyly looked away, hoping he wouldn't point out her bashfulness. If anything, Ren liked it—no! He _loved_ it. He wanted to see it every day and wake up to it. And Nora wanted to show him how much this all meant to her. Show him how badly her heart's beating from the blood rush.

But most of all, she just wanted him to _know_.

"Love-love you, too."

This time she moved in for the kiss first, throwing her arms frantically around his neck, pressing her body as close as possible, and burying him in her added weight with legs wrapped around his torso. Throwing in everything she had and then some, she drowned him in love, and the look of surprise on Lie Ren's face was one neither Sir Scrabbles nor Nora Valkyrie would ever forget.

...

When the other two members of Team JNPR woke up the following morning, they knew something was off. First of all, there were no loud noises; an oddity considering Nora's a part of the team. Secondly, Ren's bed was unmade, a greater threat than Nora's absence. Guy liked to be clean and healthy above all else. And finally, dark clouds covered the horizon, threatening a thunderstorm between the transition of summer and fall, though that might just be the upcoming weather for a mountain region.

Still, there's something in the air—sweet and off-balance. They could almost taste it.

Battle instincts on full alert, Jaune and Pyrrha escaped their temporary room to locate their missing teammates. If only they hadn't slept in, but their practice spar the day before practically robbed them of energy, Jaune even managed to sleep through Pyrrha's snoring. A miracle, he might add. The only reminder of his victory yesterday were the bruises hidden around his body. He forbade his Aura from healing them just yet.

He enjoyed the constant reminder, more than the constant pain, but it was a close second. A very close second.

Lurking around the corner, Noodle and Cereal found their lost companions in the kitchen. Pancake's currently waiting to be fed, while Health Nut made said food. It wouldn't be anything out of the ordinary if Nora currently was locking eyes with the floorboard, totally silent throughout the whole process. Things only got stranger when the duo heard Ren's soft humming, breaking the small bubble in the kitchen. And were those reddish-purple marks on Nora's neck? First Nora's quietness and now Ren's cheerfulness?

What's going on?

But what finally pushed them over the edge was when Ren handed Nora her _heart-shaped_ , thunderbolt splashed pancakes! There's this small smile of his that put everyone else's to shame. And he's still humming that little song of his, even when he began pouring syrup on her food for her, oblivious, or not caring for Nora's comatose state. Then he's cutting up her pancakes for her and—?!

Subtly could go jump off a cliff! Jaune's getting to the bottom of all this madness _right now_.

"Alright, what's going on here?" Jaune threw his hands out, voice cryptic. He eyed them both warily. "Nora's all quiet and Ren's humming while he's making pancakes? Something's not right here, and Pyrrha and I want to know what's up."

If Ren's at all surprised by Jaune's walk-in, he didn't show it. The Lie continued on making breakfast, albeit the pancakes on his pan retain a normal circular shape to much of his leader's irken. Jaune's intrusion had done nothing to his good mood. Besides, Ren knew a certain firecracker preferred to break the news. And he didn't want to get on his girlfriend's bad side on day one.

Wouldn't be too surprising with the Semblance he had, but he's trying to beat the odds down with cheerful optimism. It seemed to be working, too.

Flipping the last pancake, Ren set the table, and when he approached Nora, she exploded in a flurry of emotions. Like Jaune's signature Supernova, she's the center of attention, hugging his arm tightly, almost dropping the plate of pancakes in his hand. And there's this grin on her face, honest and truthful, that Ren couldn't help but smile alongside her.

"We're together-together now!" And just like a switch, she's out of juice, back to being subdued by the whole situation. It's apparent she's blushing like a tomato. "So yea, get used to it, because _this is happening_!"

Just to make things a _bazillion_ times harder for Nora, Ren kissed her on the head, ignoring the way her face grew three higher shades of pink. She had no problem accepting the affection, having had time to cool down since yesterday, but having people around for Ren's display of public affection was another entirely. Her heart's still jumping around in her chest, and were those black butterflies in her stomach? She wished they go away. They're making it hard to for her to look anyone in the face.

Pyrrha, on the other hand, was eating it all up! And she's not talking about the pancakes. Her inner romantic's coming out to play, and she couldn't wait to pull Nora away so she could get her to spill all the details. But for now, Nora's embarrassment was plenty. And then there's Jaune, grinning for them, but it's more like a nonchalant grin, like he already had this relationship locked away since day one.

"About time! You know I'm going to tell Sun and Neptune, right?" Ren said nothing; of course he knew. The Lie's just busy putting the dirty utensils away. "So? When it'd happen? This morning, right before breakfast?"

Cleaning his hands off, Ren shrugged. "Last night. Kind of sprung it on her. She's still a little... embarrassed by the whole thing."

 _Nervous_ was what Jaune would say. _Embarrassed_ was the _biggest_ understatement of the century. Poor Nora's tongue-tied and Ren's not making it any easier by taking a seat next to her and offering to feed her bits of pancake. He's even doing this whole lean on the table and gaze into her eyes shtick, and she's falling for it, _hard_. And how come Jaune's just now realizing that Ren's wearing an apron over his Lore cloak? Or that the words written on it were _King of the Castle_? Silly wouldn't be the best word to describe it, but it's damn close.

Throwing in the towel, he sat down and ate away at his food, staying close to his googly partner. "Am I the only one who finds this weird?"

Pyrrha grinned, resting her elbows on the table and head in her palms. She could recount the few times Nora found herself love-struck by Ren's presence. Each and every time had the girl a bumbling fool, totally under the control of Ren's actions. And some misfortune always pushed them apart. It was honestly bittersweet to think about, but romantic all the same.

She couldn't wait to tell Team RWBY when they got back. Little or not, this was just the distraction she needed from the whole Fall Maiden mess.

"I think it's cute. Nora's been pining for this for so long, and now that she has it, she doesn't know what to do with it. It's like making your cake and eating it too. She's lost and Ren's only making it harder for her to concentrate."

Jaune blinked, waving Pyrrha's observation away. "No. Not that. _I get that_. I'm talking about how Ren's all about the public displays of affection."

To prove his point, Ren grabbed Nora's hand and fed her a forkful of pancake. His soft smile deserved to be plastered on a magazine cover. She's smiling too, but it's one full of blushing. He then wrapped an arm around her shoulder and continued on eating and feeding her.

They're totally oblivious to their presence.

Jaune discreetly pointed at the pair, shushing his voice for only Pyrrha to hear. "See! That's what I'm talking about! That's coming from Ren of all people! Ren! Tell me I'm not going crazy? Just say it. I dare you!"

"Well, what do you expect? He's been holding back his feelings for who knew how long, forced to act a certain way to for her benefit." Pyrrha had this faraway look to her, knowing the feeling quite well from worn experience. "Trust me, I can understand where he's coming from. And now that's been given the freedom to express himself, he's not going to hold himself back, and Nora just so happens to be the center of his attention."

Jaune stuck a fork in his pancake, still shaken up by the whole thing. "... It's still weird."

Pyrrha ignored her Heartless Leader in favor of giggling for Nora's predicament. To be fair, she did get where Jaune's coming from. Having Ren as Mr. PDA did put them in a sort of Limbo state. Still, she'd be the first to admit that she's a little jealous of her friend, and by a little, she meant a lot. But she's super happy for Nora regardless, and hoped for the best.

And seeing Nora so flustered was its own reward.

In a way, Ren stole her thunder, like catching lightning in a bottle, and Pyrrha found that absolutely adorable. Jaune just found it weird; Nora's normally the emotional one, not the other way around. Strange how backwards it was, but he's not the one in a relationship, so what did he know.

Cutting her pancake into five pieces, it's then she noticed they're still missing the fifth person of their little mission team, a certain combat professor. "Excuse me, but where's Professor Goodwitch?"

Ren shrugged, not knowing anything about it. "I'm not sure. She was already gone by the time we woke up. Professor Goodwitch might be out, surveying the area? Or she might just be an early riser."

"And Sir Scrabbles? I'm surprise Professor Goodwitch hasn't seen him yet."

The mention of its name made the little guy's head _pop_ out of Ren's collar, clueless. "Sir Scrabbles either hides underneath the beds, or in my cloak. Sloths are notorious for hiding in plain sight."

Jaune snorted. "And wearing a perfectly concealing, Grimm-furred coat has nothing to do with it."

"I never said that."

Sighing, Jaune plucked a piece of pancake in his mouth, enjoying the enhanced taste. "Gotta say, these pancakes are to die for? You've really out done yourself? What's your secret?"

Ren perked up mildly. "The secret ingredient is—!"

"If you say love, I'll call Sun and Neptune right now."

...

Breakfast past without much interruption, only lasting awkwardness for Jaune and Pyrrha, but they kept it to themselves. The whole together-together thing would take some time to get used to, well, if wouldn't have if Ren hadn't turned out to be such a romantic. None of them expected that. So the duo's forced to adapt. At least they're not Nora. Poor girl didn't like being the center of attention when it came to romance, apparently. She's fine with all other forms of attention-seeking. But romance was a no-go.

Even handholding—which Ren did guiltlessly—brought out the mess in her.

Fortunately, when it came down to going about their current mission, Ren was all serious, which meant Nora was in turn serious, too. However, it's much harder for her, so much harder. Serious or not, she's still on cloud nine. There's a pun about Ren's silly rainclouds in there somewhere.

Their professor and commander met them outside their sleeping quarters, bidding them a clip good morning before sending them off. The mission's current goal was to finish the cleanup of the compound. If Glynda saw the tombstones and connected the dots between Nora and Ren, she respectably kept her mouth shut and thoughts to herself. It's not her business, and unless they spoke first, she's just going to treat the mission like any other. But that didn't mean she'd simply standby if she's a witness to a victim-breakdown on either party. The professor would gladly step in and offer a comforting shoulder.

To be honest, if she had known prior to the mission specs, they would've never gone on this mission to begin with. An insight on her part, but one she didn't plan to make again. Actually, when she's being completely honest about it, she's proud of the way Nora and Ren were handling it.

Glynda knew she would've reacted far worse. If only she knew what happened the day before, at the meeting of the elders and a center Lie. Her opinion wouldn't have changed, but she would've learned a thing or two about the village's secrets.

Nonetheless, besides the cleaning part or defending the villagers from random Grimm attacks, Glynda had another goal in mind. She wanted to talk to the four members of Team JNPR, separately if possible. That's her true intention in this mission; otherwise, the professor would've never left Beacon in the first place. They had plenty of other professors to watch over the students.

For her first target, she decided to seek out the strongest link of the team, Pyrrha Nikos. Of the four of them, Miss Nikos had the most going on—as far as she knew—and getting that out of the way now would not only allow for that bandage to be peeled, but it'd give the champion time to cool down, unwind, and think hard about her choice.

Too bad that's not what irked her.

Foolish or not, Glynda expected Pyrrha to be mad—livid even. It's guaranteed. She anticipated nothing less than hate. How could she not? To force a Destiny upon one person and hold their leader hostage was nothing short of backstab. Sure, the cards might look different to someone else's perspective, Pyrrha might've even acted saddened by the whole thing at first, but sins were part of being a human, and she figured either wrath or pride awaited their little talk.

Glynda's leaning more toward wrath. Pride wouldn't have allowed Pyrrha's _Fearless Leader_ to step in and stop the fight, nor would it have allowed to be pushed around. So either her pride was overshadowed by her wrath, meaning her respect for her leader's tremendous, or Jaune Arc's more powerful than he let on, and he simply outshined both her wrath and pride.

There's even the possibility of both options coming to fruition.

Sighing, Glynda went to hunt down her star-student, figuring their good relationship would forever be tarnished. "Let's just get this over with."

Anonymous to her, Pyrrha made her choice yesterday, surrounded by tombstones in a cemetery crafted by the hands of man, and not by the monsters that plagued the world.

...

There's something peaceful that came with doing menial chores. A lack of refines that's neither needed nor wanted. Just a broom and her thoughts, and Pyrrha liked that. She would admit it's not the most glamorous of activities; a far outcry to what her Polarity could solve in a matter of minutes, but simple was sometimes betters. This just so happened to be one of those times. And it gave her time to think.

Now that she's alone with her thoughts, her mind's stuck on the Maiden problem, not the Penny one. She didn't need to give Penny much thought, not when she really broke it down, the girl knew instinctively her leader would solve it. He always did. Pyrrha couldn't even recall the last time Jaune truly asked her for help. It both saddened and filled her with joy.

Jaune would make a fine Huntsmen in the future. She just knew it.

Fluttering some trash into a neat pile, she found her natural smile breaking upon the notice of a random, forgotten tombstone. It's next to a compound, most likely their old home, covered in dirt and grass from years of heavy neglect. She only spotted it because she moved enough trash away—a sad sight to behold.

Kneeling down, she attempted to restore the tombstone, wiping away the dirt and grime with a surprising urgency. But her efforts prove to be far too late. Years of neglect have weathered down the stone's writing, leaving it only its base form for none to see. It's probably for the best. She couldn't keep this person's memory living for them.

"I'm sorry..."

She didn't know why she's apologizing; it just seemed like the honest thing to do. But her words meant nothing in the end. The least Pyrrha could do was clean up this individual's grave and try to forget she ever saw it. Maybe then, it wouldn't remind her of the monsters that killed these people—monster that were dressed up as humans, because calling them anything else but monsters would be blasphemy.

Gripping a tight fist, she glared around the ghost town of a compound, hating how this place felt hollow. She couldn't even imagine what it did to Ren and Nora. Sure, they acted happy on the outside, but she knew that feeling all too well. It's just a mask.

Perhaps Ren had moved past it, she saw the tear stains on his cheeks during the reveal yesterday. No one's an emotionless shell, he included, but Pyrrha feared for Nora the most. The bombastic girl may act like everything's fine, but she knew better. They all did. Underneath that shell of sugary and sweetness was a bitter center that had remained untouched for twelve years. And those layers holding it back were slowly melting away in this place of Death.

How Nora managed to hold on for so long astounded Pyrrha to no end. To be able to smile every day and get up every morning with such a black plague lingering in her mind? Pyrrha's many things, but not invincible. Everyone had gotten that one wrong.

Nora's the invincible one.

And now that Ren no longer viewed himself the monster in their little fairy tale, she didn't need to hold anything back or be the emotional outpost that her childhood friend needed. Actually, the more Pyrrha's carefully pondering it over, the more it made sense. Nora had _always_ been a shock-absorber from the very beginning, taking the blunt of all the pain for twelve years inside to make it something prosperous and beautiful on the out.

Nora Valkyrie made their life a life worth fighting for, even when Lie Ren had all but given up on such a dream. She never let him completely sink to the depths of his despair, not for twelve whole years. And thanks to her Fearless Leader, together they managed to pull Ren back up. Pyrrha just hoped Ren could pull her back when the time came, because Pyrrha doubted anyone but Ren could.

Pyrrha would never forget Nora's heartfelt confession.

 _Thank you, Jaune. Thank you giving me back my Ren._

And people often questioned why Jaune was in there team. They thought him nothing more than a burden, a filth that held them back. Ironically enough, they're half-right, he was _holding_ them, but not back, but _together_ —the glue to Team JNPR.

Releasing a tense breath, Pyrrha smiled, finding purpose to keep on moving forward with this whole Maiden thing. When it's all said and done, life's not so bad when there were friends around to lift and share the burden.

Sweeping some trash to the side, she found a large stone beneath a pile of junk. Brownish-black to black in color, the rock called to her, attracting her negativity with its positivity. And when she blinked, she recognized the stone almost immediately and brushed her broom aside.

Pyrrha reached down with almost childlike enthusiasm and grinned. "Oh, it's a lodestone! I haven't held one of these since I began my tournament run."

Call her a Geology nut, but rocks have always fascinated the girl. How could they not when her Semblance allowed her control over Magnetic Forces? All things magnetic were subjected to her will. Rocks were no different, but proved to be fragile in the thick of battle. And they're a little too heavy for her tastes.

However, lodestone meant more to her than any other rock. By definition, this rock's a natural magnet, resembling her in many ways. A little secret she kept to herself, one she hadn't found a reason in sharing yet, was that Pyrrha's Polarity allowed her to properly angle herself respectively True North. A little tricked she learned before leaving for Beacon. And she's not the only thing capable of such a thing.

Take this lodestone for example.

Suspended in air, mixed with its natural magnetic properties and it'd face north as well. And the best part! They attracted others metals, such as iron. Pyrrha even reached down and picked up a dented, iron nail and pressed it against the lodestone. And just like she prophesied, it stuck to the rock and made her smile grow. In a way, this rock was her. It attracted other metals to it and had a sense of reliability that's hard to find in nature—or in people.

Could that make Pyrrha's magnetic personality pole dependent? She couldn't honestly say. At times she'd be a pole of negativity while positivity surrounded her, and vice-versa. That could mean she changed her polarity from time to time, acting as a sort of Magnetic Reversal. Did that mean her Semblance attracted more than just metals? Definitely seemed like so if her interaction with that Penny girl meant anything. That robot's too happy around her. And she brought nothing but trouble for her and her partner.

Even her fame turned out to be a curse in disguise. By the time she figured out the truth, it had already been too late. It'd only attracted loneliness for the spotlight she trapped herself in. And she had hated it with a passion. Her positive nature only attracted the worst in people, never the good. Weiss had been no different when they first met. The heiress only wanted her for her skills and fame—at first—and not for whom she was.

Even now, the so-called protectors see her nothing more than some candidate. And that had hurt worse than any stab delivered in combat. But then a wonderful, joyous miracle had happened, and it made her heart leap and her soul sing.

She met a certain blond noodle. A blond noodle who managed to get closer to her, magnetic polarities broken, as if his _warm_ personality demagnetized the positive field she had trapped herself in. Her fame meant nothing. Her accomplishments meant nothing. None of it mattered. Not even when Weiss had told Jaune about her feats and victories. He merely brushed them aside like an afterthought. Jaune just saw her as Pyrrha Nikos, girl born in Mistral, and nothing else.

How was she supposed to ignore that? Trick question! Pyrrha couldn't. It was like Jaune flipped some switch and reversed her magnetic polarity. That flip came with friends, laughter, happiness, fond memories, meaningful relationships, and perhaps something even more in the distant future. But the positivity attracted negativity, and now her leader's in deep trouble. His very dream was on the line, and he couldn't _power through it on his own_. He needed his team to pick up the slack where his shoulders could not.

And Pyrrha Nikos would be damned if she allowed anyone—Headmaster or not—to take that all away!

 _Clink_!

Peering down, her eyes found themselves locked onto the dented nail, lying lifelessly on the floor. She's frowning, completely lost. Thinking it's nothing more than a fluke; she reached down and picked up the nail, attempting to stick it back to the lodestone. When it fell back to the floor, she paused, panicked a bit, and then picked up any piece of scrap metal and tried to feel any sort of magnetic attraction from the rock, but there's no acting force to be felt.

"What? How could this have happen?"

Pyrrha's more than confused, she's astounded. If there's one thing she knew like the back of her hand, it was how magnetic polarity worked. Rocks didn't just lose their magnetic property. Not like that. Chemistry didn't work like that. That geology fanatic in her was breaking free, interested. She still felt the Fe atoms buried within the rock's chemical structure, so there hadn't been a change to its atomic structure, nor had the magnetite been altered in anyway. And there's an absence of any influx of heat, so the chemistry to rid a magnetic field was naught. But the polarity field was just not there anymore.

It's gone.

The problem only grew more troublesome since it's lodestone that got demagnetize, a naturally made magnet. In order for such an occurrence to happen, extreme heat's needed to be involved. Heat broke down a magnetic field, rapidly moving the atoms until the field was weakened, the bonds broken, and eventually demagnetized. That's why _fire_ was such a terrible match-up for Pyrrha.

Whereas cold amplified magnetic properties, slowing down the atoms so the magnetic domains get aligned, in turn strengthening the polarity and the bonds, making Moirázo and Akoúo̱—which were constantly sustained at below freezing temperatures—perfect for her Semblance and fighting style. The Aura shards just kept the blood healthy so it wouldn't rot and breakdown. Plus, iron's not the strongest of metals, but Aura did strengthen that property.

So unless she's baking in an oven, she's going insane. The sun's not even out today, adding to the already growing problem.

"What's going on? Nothing's making sense." It's then she noticed her forearm glowing in a blood-crimson shade of Aura. "I'm... glowing?"

Pyrrha found it odd. The furthest she ever got in Jaune's Aura training was looking like a fool. Only Nora managed to pull off any sort of glow. A pity, too, the cereal mascot really wanted to master Aura control like her leader. But it wasn't meant to be. Even now, she felt no different than the time at Emerald Forest. But she's radiating that bloody red color.

Thinking it logically, she titled her head at the options she's given.

It could be from the mastery of her Semblance? She didn't feel any different. Her control over Aura still felt the same. The training must've just pushed her control over the limit to glow. It'd be funny if it wasn't so sad. On the other hand, the champion hadn't realized she had been focusing so intently on her Aura. Her emotions must've gotten the better of her.

Could it have been her Aura? Jaune did mention Aura was heat. Anyone could read that footnote from his Aura notebook. And Pyrrha had been on the opposite end of his Aura weapons to know how blinding-hot Aura could be, plus, she _was_ glowing. Maybe her Aura burned the lodestone and demagnetized the rock?

Would prove more prominent if she could see any scorch marks on the rock to indicate burning. This must be how her leader felt trying to unlock Aura and Lore's secrets, confused and out of his element, while at the _same time being in his element_.

How troublesome.

To anyone else, she could imagine them thinking _that's just the ramblings of an optimistic but clueless girl_ , and they'd be mostly right for anyone _outside_ of Team JNPR. To prove her point, her Aura glowed in response to her happy emotions, and then faded out of existence.

Smiling, Pyrrha figured she had it all broken down. The strange demagnetization and glow of Aura made somewhat sense. Although, she had no idea how she managed to pull glowing off, or how to scientifically break it all down, but that didn't matter. As long as she's making headway, her journey's end was just around the corner, one step at a time. Patience was all she needed to make her dreams come true.

Dropping the lodestone, Pyrrha picked up the broom and continued on sweeping, but she's just going through the motions. Her mind's reeling on the fact of her initial glowing. Like a broken record, she couldn't get the moment out of her head. More so, she couldn't wait to tell the others. Hopefully Jaune's willingly to help her train, because as much as she wanted to ask Ren and Nora for help, _something_ told the cereal girl to give them their privacy.

Sighing, Pyrrha leaned on the nearest wall, trying to find an excuse not to ask Jaune for help. Pride partially stopped her, mixed in with some jealousy to how adapt with Aura he was, but her conscious beat her into submission for even thinking such a thought.

Jealously wasn't what held her back, how could it when she's nothing but proud of Jaune's fortitude to break the barriers and push past the limits of what Aura could do. No. Pyrrha's afraid she might do something stupid like reveal the whole Maiden nonsense if she spent enough time around him. Wait. That's a total lie. She _knew_ she would reveal it all. So she couldn't be around him. Not now.

Her lips need to remain sealed until further notice.

Biting said lips, she relinquished all attempts to cleaning. Instead, she opted to sit down, bring her knees together, and pick up the piece of lodestone she discarded, more interested into breaking down the _how_ and _why_ the rock lost its magnetic properties. Even if she did have a general gist to why it happened, she still found the whole process fascinating and thought-consuming.

Never before did she picture her Semblance and Aura influencing a rock's chemical properties to such an extent. And now that she's acquired a taste of it, she wanted more.

Breaking it down, she knew how her Semblance worked better than anyone. Or at least she thought she did. Before, her Semblance required her to personally interact with the metallic objects, but now that's not the case, and her range of control extended further down to a molecular structure now. She'd always been able to bend non-metallic things as well, like aluminum, that's just how powerful her Semblance was at the time.

Now it'd grown stronger. Never before had she had the power to demagnetize an object. Granted, Aura might have had an influence there, but it's still her own power. Her Polarity, an enigma in the purest of science, had opened doors to newer possibilities. Take her ability to sense nearby metals. Now that she's focused on sensing the metal from this rock, her Polarity's picking up other metals around her. Some large, others small, some magnetic and others not, they're all the same in the grand scheme of things.

Pyrrha would even consider calling her ability Compass over Polarity, considering the range of scope it had and her ability to face True North at a given moment. Maybe she could call her ability to find magnetized objects Compass? That way she could still call her Semblance Polarity, and keeping her abilities true to their origin, while at the same time having a name for her ability to sense metallic objects around her. And Magnetic Field didn't exactly roll of the tongue as she had been hoping.

Pouting her lip, she sighed and banged her head on the wall. Apparently, she'd picked up a few bad habits from her Fearless Leader? Naming being one of them. It'd worse if it wasn't so much fun to do.

Laughing at herself, she glared at the lodestone before wandering her eyes over the compound. She smiled wistfully at the way the oxidized metal all around her, beckoned for her reach. Her Polarity allowed her heighten senses to actively and inactively feel such things, but it was only after learning the craft of blood bending, was Pyrrha able to actively feel such oddities. And her confusion knew no ends. But the attraction actually felt nice.

The metal didn't judge her. It didn't exploit her. It didn't even ask for anything in return. It just wanted her to reach for it. It wanted to help, to protect, to defend, and to fight. Iron, nickel, titanium, copper, and so many others surrounded her in a blanket of comfort.

They let her knew that help was just a _stone's throw away_.

Wiping a tear away, she pocketed the lodestone, wanting to keep a memento that made her think of her childhood before fame took over. As she stood up, a piece of wood, sticking out the wall, cuts her roughly on her shoulder. Before she could wince, a small trinket of blood was flowing down her wound. Her Aura's already on the case, closing up it up in seconds, but the blood's already free.

Waving her hand, she called the blood to float to the center of her palm. It condensed in a sphere, a natural victim to Polarity's properties to shape things spherically—power of gravity. If she wanted, it would be a simple task to shape the blood into a different shape, but time's limited, so she willed the blood to attach to her weapons before the chemical bonds shattered.

Done, she reached for the broom, but her fingers remained distant. Something had been bugging her ever since she learned to control the iron in blood. She's not dumb. Pyrrha knew blood shouldn't be affected by her Polarity. Even if it did contain Fe atoms, the size, numbers, and even magnetism weren't there to be affected by her Polarity. Blood's not even a metalloid or metal to start with.

So why?

Why did she have power over the life-giving liquid? There's a chance a little reading would reveal the answer. It had gotten her this far. And her medical book was back at their temporary room. A quick jog there should suffice to quench for thirst for knowledge.

Feeling absolutely positive, she picked up another piece of scrap and glared wistfully at it, wondering if she should make a sculpture for Nora for finally landing her King. She didn't know if she would react in joy or embarrassment, but that's the fun part. Silently, she's hoping for embarrassment. Nora's amusing to watch whenever she's flustered. It's like watching a dancer with two left feet, a disaster that's prone to be painful, yet no one could look away from it.

"Hello, Miss Nikos. I thought I'd find you here. Can we talk?" Smirking wishfully, Pyrrha dropped the ball of rusted metal.

Guess the fun's over.

Next time she'd have to control her positivity, because it seemed to have attracted negativity. Now she was stuck to deal with Professor Goodwitch and her apparent sympathy. Pyrrha really preferred not to deal with such issues. At least she could chalk this up as confirming her ability to attract negativity with a positive attitude.

She's not so sure if that's a victory.

Shrugging her shoulders, Pyrrha turned to meet her professor, doing her best attempt of a smile. "I would love to talk."

The blonde glared. "You can cut the act now, Miss Nikos. You're not fooling anyone."

Like the drop of a pin, she did drop the smile. If they're being brutally honest here, then Pyrrha's not even going to give Glynda another passing glance, she's not even going to put in the effort to care about her company. That ball of rust proved to be a better companion, anyway. At least it didn't force her to make choices or hold her leader's dream over a barrel.

Reaching down, she plucked the ball of rust off the floor; she had a glare that proved colder than Moirázo and Akoúo̱. "What do you want?"

Glynda frowned, not used to her star-student angry. "Okay, I deserve that. For what it's worth, I'm sorry for the inconvenience this whole problem had brought upon you and your partner."

She huffed. There really's no point in beating around the bush. "It's not just Jaune and I. This affects the entire team."

After thinking it seriously over, Glynda agreed with Pyrrha's assessment. But she's not going to be the one to entail the champion's wrath. "To be fair, Mr. Arc did make the deal with Ozpin, not I. Your anger's just being directed at me because I'm the closest _candidate_."

Wrong choice of wording.

Glynda thought she held all the cards, but Pyrrha played her hidden ace. "You're still supposed to _convince_ me to accept the Maiden Powers. Isn't that the whole point of this mission?"

Glasses were pushed up. "I won't lie to you. Partially, yes, but the mission is to also assess your teamwork. All teams must go through assessment." Pyrrha didn't say a word, interested more in the metal. "Can we please act like adults here?"

 _Crush_!

The ball of rust fractured in Pyrrha's hand, Semblance free. "Talk like adults? You're forcing me to make a choice. A choice between either being a good person or not! But here's the best part, by choosing the obvious one; it affects my team in a bad way. And by not becoming the Maiden, then I'm letting down humanity. So tell me! Please! When do you want to talk like adults? Huh? Where's the compromise?"

"You're just assuming the worst!" Glynda yelled. "You're forgetting about the third choice. You become the Fall Maiden and nothing bad happens."

Pyrrha laughed bitterly. _Nothing bad happens_? Who would believe that nonsense? "Because that worked so well for the last one! You don't even know if the Aura transfer is going to work. Worse yet! Something could go wrong. The Maiden powers could be destroyed or even lost. I could even die! Then how is Team JNPR supposed to win the tournament if they're down a fighter?"

Glynda paused, snide on her tongue dissolved. Oh? Now she understood. Now she figured it out. "What do you want me to say? Just tell me."

Pyrrha glared, she glared so hard that it hurt. And her glare's turned to the forgotten person buried underneath a neglected tombstone. "Why me? Of all candidates, why me? You knew about my leader's bet, and yet you dump this all on me, anyways. Couldn't you have at least waited until _after_ the tournament? Why do you need a Maiden now?"

"We told you why—!"

"I want to hear it from your mouth!" Pyrrha shouted with her arms out. "Not Ozpin's! Not Penny's! And not General Ironwood's! But yours! Why can't you just wait for Amber to get better? Her condition is stable. Why isn't that an option?"

Glynda sighed, rubbing the corner of her glasses with tiredness. "We're desperate, okay. We need someone we can trust to be the next Fall Maiden, someone who understands the difference between right and wrong. Amber was a good candidate, but she won't be strong enough to fight her assailant a second time, not if she's afraid of them. And we can't have that. These powers need to be entrusted into someone worthy." Goodwitch pinched her nose, annoyed with herself. "I'm sorry things are turning out the way they are, Miss Nikos. But time isn't on our side."

Glynda expected Pyrrha to accept the answer, but the champion simply narrowed her eyes at the professor, looking beneath even the subtext. "Why is time running out? You have Amber locked underneath Beacon Academy. I can't imagine anyone being able to break-in. So _who_ is it you're afraid of?"

The girl's smart, Glynda's forced to admit that, a perfect candidate for the Maiden Powers. So she deserved an honest answer. "... A group of individuals who want nothing more than to control the world and watch it burn."

Pyrrha wanted to ask more, but she knew her professor planned to reveal nothing else. A useless cause, she already planned to go through with it. The champion just wanted to see how much information she could milk out of her professor. Even then, her description of these bad people left a bitter taste in her mouth. It's as rancid as the air surrounding Ren and Nora's family compound. Only difference was these monsters sounded ten-times worse and were human.

Sucking in a deep breath, Pyrrha frowned. "Keeping this from my team has not been easy, you know that?"

Glynda tilted her head. "To be honest, I didn't think you could lie to your team, Miss Nikos? You're so close, I expected you to tell them the truth at the first given moment. I'm sure _anyone_ would've."

Pyrrha gripped the rusted iron firmly, bending it with sheer will alone. "You think I like lying to them? You think I enjoy keeping secrets, and from _them_ of all people? I can't imagine me doing anything worse."

She had the courtesy to lift an eyebrow. "If that's how you feel, then why haven't you told them yet? Your team is as close as a family." She should know. She watched them all this time.

"How could I?" Pyrrha whispered with hush cruelty. "I gave _my word_ not to tell. Ozpin and you put your faith in me. A Huntsmen's _word_ is everything. Ozpin believes that, but _no one believes that more than my leader_! His word means everything to him! What kind of person would I be if I broke mine?"

Quiet for a minute, Glynda pushed down a smile, content to the level of trust Pyrrha Nikos had. Now she saw why Miss Nikos hadn't spilled the secret yet. Doing so would break her word. She couldn't. Not with a leader who put all his faith in his family's name and word. _Who_ could fault her for doing so? Even Ozpin put a lot of faith into words alone.

How honorable.

To think, she's surrounded by trustworthy, potential Huntsmen. It really brought a smile to the older woman's face. For her star-student to have that much trust, it's astonishing in this day and age. Glynda couldn't make any promises, but she would try to prevent disaster whenever possible, including the Aura transfer if Pyrrha decided to go along with it.

Moving forward, she stopped in front of Pyrrha, sympathetic. "I must thank you for keeping this all bottled up. I know it must've been difficult with a team as close as yours. And I really hate to ask... but have you considered it at all?"

Pyrrha glared at the grave in front of her, knowing full well a human caused this. "I've seen the worst in humanity. And I've seen kindness from unexpected places. I'm not going to become like one of them. I won't burden anyone with my problems, because they're mine and mine alone. But this was caused by people. And you're asking to risk my life to protect them? That's asking for a lot."

Dropping the rusted ball of metal, she glared bitterly at the corroded piece of scrap. It reminded her of the first time Jaune and she truly fought. Bent and broken she had been. Pyrrha had only wanted what was best for her leader, but she walked that path in the wrong direction. By lying to Jaune, he discovered and grew on his own, and she had missed it all.

Maybe if she had been honest from the very beginning, about her feelings and his swordplay training, then things might've turned out a little bit different. A lot of things could've turned out different. Oh well, it's too late for regrets this late into the game. And maybe, just maybe, everything had turned out for the better.

There's no denying it. She's not the same champion as before, not the one who saw the good in everything she did, or offered to help at the drop of a word. For someone treated as invincible, she once lacked a backbone. Speaking her mind and saying _no_ hadn't existed for her before. But for the better, she changed and blossomed into something new and exciting.

Pyrrha may act almost the same, but her world's forever changed. She's not so much interested in pleasing people anymore. True, the girl's determined to be likeable, but it's safe for her to say she developed a bit of a mean streak, at least to her leader and team.

No.

That's a blatant lie. Pyrrha developed something beyond a sense of kinship with her team, something more, a place where she could feel safe and herself. No cameras. No forced smiles. None of that trivial nonsense. Team JNPR was home. And she did not appreciate her home coming under attack. Be it indirect or direct, the champion didn't take kindly to her team being put down.

If the plan hadn't been to protect Jaune's secret until the final rounds of the Vytal Tournament, Pyrrha would've given General Ironwood a good lashing for his so-called advancements in Aura. Advancements this and breakthroughs that! Ha! Jaune could show those idiotic Aura scientists a thing or two, but she had been forced to bite her tongue instead.

Pyrrha would just have to wait for the Vytal Tournament to see her leader get the recognition he deserved.

"Miss—?"

"I'll do it." Pyrrha said finally, full of conviction. "I'll become your Fall Maiden because I just can't stand the thought that people did this, but I have demands that must be met. I'm not just going to give you everything for free."

Maybe a different Pyrrha Nikos would've done it out of the kindness of her heart, but she's not some other Pyrrha Nikos.

Glynda glared, but couldn't find it in her to be surprised. She figured as much. And she's not going to let this opportunity slide. "Like what?"

Pyrrha didn't need to think it over. "If something happens to me, and I mean _anything_ , then you tell my team everything. They have the right to know. I don't want them left in the dark. I don't care what the ramifications are, I don't care if it puts you and Ozpin in jeopardy, you tell them. If..." her voice lowered, trembling a bit. "If this process should kill me, Jaune stays. He doesn't have to win; he doesn't even have to compete! He stays at Beacon. End of story."

Her professor narrowed her eyes, but figured she could squeeze Ozpin's arm enough to agree. "Fine. I'm sure I can get Ozpin to agree to those terms."

"And lastly!" Pyrrha added. "If I am to lose myself, become someone different because you said that's a real possibility, you make the person I've become meet my team at least one more time. They at least get to say goodbye before I become someone else. I don't want them wondering what happened to me."

Goodwitch wasn't sure she could uphold that part of the bargain, but could see why Miss Nikos would want it. But desperate times called for desperate measures. "... It's a deal."

"I want your word—and Ozpin's—on all of this!"

She sighed, nodding her head. "I can give you my word now, but you're going to have to wait till the mission's over to get Ozpin's. But I don't think he'll have any qualms over it. Not with what we're putting you through."

Pyrrha glared, her eyes could cut through stone, but she accepted the confirmation wholeheartedly. Naturally, the four-time champion would have a contingency plan if things should just so happened to go _south_.

...

Glynda sighed, taking the time to fix her glasses into place as she traversed through the almost maze-like compound. That went better than she initially expected. Now that Miss Nikos had agreed to be their next Fall Maiden—under certain conditions—humanity's protection was practically ensured. The hardest part of this mission was over. All she needed to accomplish now was assess Mr. Arc's team and see how they felt about him as their leader, minus his partner, and their value of teamwork.

Listing the order, Glynda figured to locate the orphans of Team JNPR next, saving Mr. Arc for last. Finding Mr. Lie and Miss Valkyrie should prove to be no challenge. Where one was, the other's not too far. A clear understatement to her previous observations the first time she saw them in action back at initiation.

...

Basking on some random stairway, Ren relaxed and lied down with an uneasy stride, eyes deadly focused on his family's scroll. Call him lazy, but Ren didn't feel like cleaning up his old home. For a clean freak such as himself, ignoring the mess all around him was fairly easy with a scroll of priceless clan secrets to read. Besides, what was the council going to do about it? Make him clean his family's forgotten graveyard?

Over his dead body!

Ren still had half a mind to gut them all alive for keeping him in the dark for so long. He may have been a child at the time, but the Lie liked to believe he could've handled the truth as a child. Definitely better than allow him to roam the Kingdoms, letting him believe to be some sort of monster. Nora had only tagged along because he didn't have the strength, will, or stomach to say _no_ to her.

Thinking of Nora, Ren wondered where his lightning bug went. She had to be around here somewhere. Probably still embarrassed about the whole public displays of affection. He's not clueless—obviously—he clearly saw her reddening face each time he showed her even the tiniest bits of romantic affection. Clearly, she's shy when it came to that sort of stuff.

Maybe he's prone to enjoy her flustered displays of embarrassment?

Shrugging to himself, Ren skipped over the next passage of his family's secrets on the Evil Eye, planning later to sort his inner feelings later. For now, his Evil Eyes saw through the lies written on the parchment, seeing the truth written within.

 _Colors of a Lie_

Scanning the lines of text, he hummed and settled easier into the steps. Apparently, there's a variation of the lie, the Red Lie and White Lie. One's commonly known throughout the lands, while the other was a more reclusive lie only heard of in passing glances. Both represent a Lie to the truest form. Both come together to create the perfect Lie.

Reading the first passage, Ren found his attention focused on the White Lie.

 _The White Lie, the lie originally created to help others. A White Lie is the weakest form of lying. The emotions are too scattered, and the Lie indefinitely falls apart. White represents fear of loss of control of a situation. It only benefits the other party involved. Even the Lie clan isn't safe from its influence. A change from pink to white in the iris destroys the foundation of the Lie. At that point, a Lie becomes harmless. The misfortune is no longer predictable, causing nothing but problems for the Lie. The lies is thus discovered and destroyed. A White Lie is one of preserve innocence._

Ren coughed, narrowing his eyes. "The more emotional a Lie becomes, the weaker the Lie gets, hence the change of pink to white. I don't think that's happened to me before. It must have something to do with having two Evil Eyes."

Reading on, he jumped to the Red Lies.

 _Red Lies are more prideful and revenge inducing than White Lies. They haunt an individuals' need to seek retribution, going so harm to even harm their own person if needed. Consequences for their actions are not taken into account, and a sense of betrayal is followed. The justice a Lie searches to wrong this right can be anything, as long as they feel like they've righted the wrong they've done. Emotions work in favor for this lie, yet they could harm the Lie themselves. A Red Lie is one for a cry of passion._

He blinked, rereading the passage once over. "This is a lie of omission on oneself."

Now that lie sounded more like him, more so than the White Lie. He had thought himself a monster once, so he tried killing his emotions to protect Nora. It's funny how he still fell into his clan's grace no matter how far he tried to run from them. To think he had been living a lie all this time. How ironically cruel.

Peering up at the paper, Ren unraveled the truth hidden behind the readings in record time. A Red Lie was completely controlled by the expression of emotions, whereas White Lies were completely controlled by a control over said emotions. They're similar in many ways, but different all the same. Summing it down, the Colors of a Lie meant two different things.

Red was the color of passion.

White was the color of innocence.

Revealing more, Ren pressed onward, wondering what other secrets lie in wait for him to discover.

 _The true secrets of the Lie Clan come from the combination of both the White and Red Lie, blurred together to breathe life to the Pink Lie—the flawless color of lying. Impossible to be a completely emotionless person; the two hues get mixed together so effortlessly. Emotions reciprocate from the mind; Aura and soul blend together seamlessly, mediation clears the mind for all but Lies and Aura, resulting in the pink hue that is only noticeable in their hair and distinctive eye. Pink does both protect and fight out of compassion. However—!_

Ren abruptly paused in his readings, pausing a few times to get the meaning of the current passage cemented. He sat up and laid down the scroll, focused on finding a mirror, any mirror. His search found him a piece of broken glass on the floor, idly next to his foot, trash he was supposed to be cleaning up.

Picking up the shard, he glared at the reflection staring back at him, oddly surprised even now that deception lay before him. After all this time, he's unable to run from the lie.

"Well, at least that explains the whole pink hair thing."

Tossing the glass, it hit the cobblestone ground and shattered into countless pieces, cursing the Lie with seven years bad luck, or so the legend said. Ren found it tasteless and returned back to reading the passages left behind from his family. It worked for all but a minute. A certain love-struck bomber made her presence known, jumping right into his lap like she owned the place. To be fair, she kind of did.

Ignoring his own heart's fluttering, Ren tried to ignore Nora in favor for finishing his family's scroll. There's not much left to be read, but Nora hated being ignored and made a show for it by _booping_ his nose. It's for the best, anyways, he couldn't focus on the words anymore, not with her body pressed to his chest. Damn hormones.

Still, he needed some sort of boundary. "You know, I'm not your personal wall."

Nora grinned and made herself comfortable. "As of last night you are. So you better get used to it." She rested her head underneath his, warming up quickly to the position. "So, whatcha reading?"

Ren didn't laugh, but he wanted to.

Nora appeared more boastful to the whole situation now. An audience really did cause her to shell up, at least to romantic moments. Who knew she could be so shy? Last night must've been a curve ball for her, but now she had time to cool down and allow her thoughts to wrap around the sudden, wanted change in their dynamic.

Now she's reaping in the benefits. Like lingering her head securely under his chin while he read his family's scroll, acting a lot more like herself. Lovey-dovey or not, Ren's dishonestly trying to split his time between her and his family's secrets evenly, a battle he's quickly losing.

Nora's merciless with her snuggling.

"Nora..." Ren forced, pretending that Nora didn't just open and then close herself within his cloak, squishing them painfully close together. "You're making it difficult for me to concentrate."

Nora, with a goofy grin, just let the gravity from the cloak squeeze them together. It was tailored for one person, not two, and she's taking full advantage of that. "I know. You're cute when you're all focused."

And there went any arbitrary chance of him reading this. Cute wasn't a word he wished to be described, ever. Like adorable, but they'd cross that burning bridge another time. For now, he had to maintain a semblance of masculinity.

Eyes boring down at his mate, Ren thinned his mouth into a line. "I thought I was always handsome?"

Ren couldn't see the way Nora's lip turned sadistic, but he knew her enough for such a reaction. She rested her cheek on his chest, refusing to give him the satisfaction of seeing her blush again. "You can be both."

"... I don't want to be both."

Nora found sleeping here was a definite possibility. She always liked the sound of his strong heartbeat, this not being the first time she slept on his chest, but the sped up version's even nicer because she's the one making it beat like that.

"Well, tough noodles! You're gonna have to learn to live with it!"

Glaring down at her resting body, Ren smiled a bit. He's not really focused on the readings, anymore. His mind was wandering elsewhere. To places that made him smile like a complete fool. Like to the soft feel of Nora's lips or the heavy thumping of her heart when he pulled her close. Those thoughts made reading more of a chore, rather than a hobby.

Love's a distraction he was fondly opened to.

Although, compromises or not, he did not want to be called _cute_. Jaune, Sun, and Neptune would never let him live it down if they ever found it, and knowing his luck and his leader, that's a guaranteed. And the Lie couldn't have that. Not a chance. He's going to have to up his game and make the idea of cute seem like a distant dream.

For now, though, he'd give her this win, anything to keep her happy. Funny, that was his life goal for the past twelve years, and even after discovering the truth, that proved not to change in the slightest. Maybe he wasn't exactly living a lie, just one filled with half-truths, one of them being the girl resting comfortable underneath his chin.

"You okay, Ren?"

Frowning, he just realized how awfully quiet he had been. Thinking hard, he stared up into the sky. The dark clouds were nice, so was the passing wind a few droplets beginning to rain down. Sometimes he wished he could join them. Must be his clan's influence, or maybe he just loved the way the rain cleaned up all the messes and purified the land around him. It really spoke to his desire to be healthy and to keep Nora safe.

He settled his head over hers, wrapping arms around her this time. He felt her tense up, but soon relax into his hold. "Everything just happened so fast yesterday. I guess I'm still trying to let it all sink in. Our families' death and the truth just hit me kind of hard."

She sighed restlessly. "I know what you mean, but it's still nice knowing." Nora hummed, wondering. "So you've forgiven those old geezers then? You know, for not telling us the truth?"

Ren frowned, full of hate, arms wrapped even tighter around her. "Not even close. I still have a few words to say with those elders. If they think I'm done asking questions, then they're sadly mistaken."

Nora giggled, loving Ren's mean streak. "You're so _cute_ when you're angry."

His glare's directed at the ball of orange hair. "You'll pay for that."

She squirmed in his hold, free from consequence. "Nope! I can call you anything I want now, my handsome sloth. I don't ever have to pay for anything from you ever again."

He hated how right she was. He made a show for this by resting his chin on her giggling scalp. "You never do, anyways. I always have to bail you out of trouble. It gets pretty tiring, Nora."

"You know you love it."

He wouldn't dignify that with a response, but he would hold her closer. He's just hoping the Lore cloak would hold. Being made out of Lore—gravity—he still felt there's a chance it might rip, a weird concern of his since he felt perfectly fine without it this morning, even before making breakfast. It had something to do with getting closure, he knew that, but he still preferred if it didn't rip. Dangerous or not, the article provided aid in battle, and being able to direct Bad Luck was its own reward.

His thoughts were broken when he felt Nora shift the tiniest bit in an uncomfortable way. She had a distinct way of doing it, almost invisible to everyone, but Ren learned to read her body language over the years. And right now she's deeply troubled.

"Nora, are you okay?"

She's quick to answer, a little too quickly. "Yup! Never better!"

Ren huffed. That's an obvious lie. "What aren't you telling me, Nora? What's wrong?"

This time he could hear the panic in her voice. The shaking didn't help. "What? Nothing's wrong? What makes you think something is wrong?"

He's nonchalant with his answer. "I don't even need to use my eyes to tell if you're lying or not, you're just very bad at it." She said nothing, so Ren pressed firmly onward. "Nora? What's wrong? Tell me."

When she finally did say something, it's as fragile as a whisper. "... I found my parent's grave."

"... Oh."

 _Thunder_!

Rain slowly began to fall around the village, nothing out of the ordinary. It's starting off weak, but Ren knew it would pick up in due time. Yet, he's not so sure what to do right now. He knew firsthand how difficult it was to act when he found his parent's grave. Sure, there were other dead people buried all around them, but nothing would ever truly beat the gut-wrenching punch he felt his stomach when he found his mother and father's resting place. And now it's Nora's turn.

Ren had known Nora all his life. He knew she was strong enough to say her goodbyes without him. _She_ knew she was strong enough to say her goodbyes. Didn't mean he's going to let her go it alone, not if she wanted him to hold her hand. Maybe she's just tired being the one who always smiling. Probably be nice to have a shoulder to cry on.

Nora rested her head desperately along his chest. "Can you... can you come with me?"

Ren smiled and kissed her on the top of her head. "I wouldn't have it any other way."

She didn't even need to ask.

...

The trip had taken longer than necessary to reach Nora's parent's resting site, but she hadn't wanted to untangle herself from Ren for a while. He never said a word during the time, opting to remain quiet unless Nora wanted him to say anything, but she wanted him to be there. So that's what he did until she found the strength to say goodbye.

Walking around her old home, the two grave-sites stood separated by a rusty gate, surrounded by overgrown vegetation. The gate was open, by Nora's earlier curiosity no less, and the hinges appeared rusted beyond repair. The growing rain would only weaken the metal and corrode it until it shattered upon itself.

Together, they step inside, hand-to-hand with her clinging close to Ren. Both their hair was wet from the rain, and Sir Scrabbles had popped out of Ren's collar to see what all the troubling emotions were about. It felt some from the male, but it's mostly the female with heart wrenching sorrow. And the Grimm wanted nothing more to bury those emotions and keep them far away from his caretaker.

To think, a Grimm had came this far to understanding love— _compassion_.

Kneeling down, Nora gave it her all and smiled wholeheartedly at the tombstones, not fooling Ren or Sir Scrabbles in the slightest. Ren said nothing and grabbed her shoulder for reassurance, kneeling on one to knee to shield her partially from the rain. Sir Scrabbles didn't fully understand the situation, but attached itself to Nora's neck, hoping to ease her troubles.

Waving, she acted all happy. "Hiya mom and pops! How's being dead treating you?" But her mask's breaking fast. "Sorry I haven't visited... ever. I've been super busy trying to become an awesome Huntress. And let me tell you, it's not easy! There's all these rules I'm supposed to remember! And studying! I hate it so much."

That smile of her began to wobble. Her eyes glistened with twelve years of unexpressed emotion. Even her voice cracked underneath the rainfall. Only Sir Scrabbles and Ren's hold kept her from completely breaking down.

A little love could go a long way.

"I-I..." Nora whispered. "I just know I could've really used a hug sometimes. I miss you both."

Ren frowned with sympathy. He could see the tears in her eyes, rain or no rain. As Nora tried to build up more courage to talk, he looked over to her parent's tombstones, Thor and Sif Valkyrie. Even in Death, Thor made Ren feel uncomfortable, more so that he got together with his daughter. He remembered the tall man well, a behemoth in all rights. Nora's father even sported a manic grin like her daughter, but he had actively gone out of his way to cause destruction for sport. The man even sported a mullet. Her mother, on the other hand, was as gently as water. She had accepted her husband explosive tendencies with open arms.

Nora looked a lot like her mother, but she got her father's smile and teal eyes. Not to mention his bravery and drive to never give up.

Little did they know Glynda Goodwitch was watching from the sideline, a ghost in all pretenses of the word. She didn't say a word, or even make her presence known upon finding Nora and Ren kneeled over a pair of tombstones. Only Sir Scrabbles felt her presence nearby, sensing her scattered emotions, but remained mute, silently thanking the king's subject for blocking her view of it.

"Ren..." Nora hiccuped, unable to hide her tears in the rain. She clung to his hand with distress. "I don't want our family torn apart again."

He laid his head on hers. "Then we'll win the tournament and force Jaune to stay. That way our family won't ever be broken up ever again."

Nora sniffed, wiping away her endless tears. "Promise?"

"Promise."

Glynda wisely decided to retreat, hearing all she needed to know and more. Her intrusion's unwanted, and she had no plans to sour the mood, but she did leave the area with a proud smile and good mood, all of which was meant for one blond noodle that acted more than just glue for Team JNPR.

Bouncing back to Ren and Nora, the Lie heard the telltale sounds of nearby thunder and urged Nora up. "We need to get out of the rain, Nora."

She's not ready yet. "Can we just stay... a little longer? Please?"

Someone once told Ren that love made people do the craziest things, like stand in the middle of a raging thunderstorm. He didn't get it at first and thought them nothing but fools. Now he wanted nothing more than to be at the heart of that rainfall, if it meant that Nora would smile again.

Crazy or not, he's not willingly to let Nora get sick.

Getting up, Ren peeled off his Lore cloak and stretched it out over his head, blocking the falling rain from drenching her in anymore water. He didn't care if he got sick, but he wouldn't allow her to. And unlike the rainclouds hovering over him, the pink rainclouds hovering over Nora wouldn't allow her to be cold; their compassion was meant to keep her warm.

There Ren waited until Nora felt better. She couldn't muster up the courage to say anything else, or maybe she didn't have anything else to say. He just waited until the rain finally began to let up. The thunder eventually came and went, leaving only behind a small trickle of water. The skies were still murky, a testament to the raincloud's presence. But the horizon held a sunset and a blanket of stars waiting to be revealed.

Finally, Nora stood up. Before Ren could react, she swiftly leaned into his chest, tired. She smiled lovingly when he wrapped one arm around her stomach, using the other to keep his cloak up so the remaining rain wouldn't fall on her. Having Ren always there was nice, but having his love was doubly better. Nora normally loved the rain. That's when the lightning came out to play. Knowing he's here for her was what made the pain wash away with the rain.

"You know I love-love you, right dummy?"

Ren smiled and held her close. "You might've mentioned it once or twice."

After that, she appeared to get better, but there's this underlining sadness only time could heal. She broke away from Ren, needing some time alone, heading off in some random direction with no real importance. She left Sir Scrabbles with Ren, really driving that needing to be alone part.

Frowning, Ren fixed his cloak, a little impressed that the water just rolled off. Sir Scrabbles attached itself to his neck, quiet to the whole ordeal. It felt cold without the male's mate to warm-up the air around them with positivity, but rare moments such as these shouldn't be disturbed.

After fixing his collar, he looked over to Sir Scrabbles, tired from it all. "I don't know if coming here was a blessing or curse yet. What do you think?" The Grimm blinked. "Yea, that's what I'm guessing, too."

Taking a step forward, a wooden support beam fell from a nearby housing unit, broke, and laid in front of Ren. He's totally emotionless to the whole situation and stepped forward to continue on walking, but the second both his feet left the wet ground, Lady Luck rolled the dice.

 _Thunder_!

Pausing on the wood, Ren turned his head to see where a bolt of lightning had struck. The loud noise hurt to hear, but he's more cautious of the fact that said lightning bolt hit the spot where Nora's parents laid. It's kind of poetic and lucky of him to be stepping on a non-conductive piece of material. That could've turned bad with all the water everywhere.

 _Thunder_!

Now Ren had no choice but to widen his eyes, Sir Scrabbles made it a duet. A second bolt of lightning hitting the same spot just didn't happen. Ever! That's more than just a coincidence. Not even his clan believed in that form of Misfortune since the odds of that happening were astronomical. Luck's still a probability game, but the odds could only be stacked so much before the house of cards started tumbling down.

Lightning striking twice in the same spot was one of those bust hands.

Narrowing his eyes significantly, Ren's Evil Eyes tried to find any fault with Nora's parent's tombstones, but no pink was shown. Then his sharp senses pick up a minuscule light floating from behind a tombstone. It flashed on and off with intervals less than a second each. The glowing light it emitted was teal in color, blinking endlessly. Then a second one joined the first, flying away from the other tombstone, adding to the little light show.

As they got closer to Ren, they kept flying in circles around the Lie, acting like tiny bouts of electricity. When they land on his shoulder, they stop glowing for Ren to be able to see.

"Fireflies? What are these doing here? The summer's too far along for any more of these guys to be flying around? And how's the rain not pelting them?" They light up once more, flashing Ren a ray of turquoise before flying off toward the direction where Nora went. It's when they turn a corner did he realize what they were, or whom they were.

Turning around, Ren walked over to the gravestones and leaned down to wipe the dirt away from resting site. "Don't worry Mr. and Mrs. Valkyrie, I'll keep Nora safe. I'll protect her."

At a faraway corner, surrounded by the graves of Valkyries and very tall grass, Nora's wiping tears away, finally getting some semblance of control over her emotions, but then a pair of fireflies land on her nose and just stay there. She's too confused of their presence to do anything, yet they didn't stay long and soon flew away, but not before giving the lightning bolt a little dance in the air.

She didn't know why, but it made her feel better, a lot better. Then magic happened in front of the Valkyrie's eyes. The rain stopped and hundreds to thousands of fireflies escape the tall grass, dancing around her in a light show only meant for her and no one else. What confused Nora to no end was the light these two emitted, compared to all the others around they're a deep shade of turquoise that reflected the pigment of her eyes.

Wiping her remnant tears, she reached out with an open palm and the two fireflies perched themselves there for a minute, tickling her skin with the tiny scuffling of their bodies. Then they all soon began to do just that, surrounding not only her hand but whole body in a blanket of light. She couldn't even find the sensation scary or weird, having always loved fireflies for their little power to create electricity, like her ability to absorb electricity.

Getting lost in the sensation, Nora blinked when they emitted all at once.

It felt like a _really warm hug_.

Then they scattered, following the retreating rainclouds in a show of light. Nora couldn't follow their movements forever. Eventually they just disappear mid-flight. She had to rub her eyes to make sure it wasn't just for show.

Not seeing her firefly friends anymore, Nora sighed with small bits of contentment. Her heart didn't feel as heavy and there's this weight in her soul that's just missing. The urge to cry was beaten down into submission, and invisible joy was tugging at the strings attached to her soul. Not even the sight of the surrounding tombstones made her want to cry.

Although, their sight did fill her up with something else entirely, an emotion she had little time experiencing before. "I can see why you want to hurt the people who killed our families. It would be so easy to get mad. To throw just everything all at once at them. It would be so easy."

Ren coughed, embarrassed that he got caught the moment he turned a corner. So he's not that sneaky or Nora knew him too well. He's hope with the latter. He couldn't afford to not be sneaky. Still, to be caught red-handed like this was a little awkward; he just wanted to check up on her for a bit. The fireflies didn't exactly make him want to stay away.

"Nora?"

She kicked a lone pebble, feeling the dark temptation go away. "But I don't think I can ever be mad enough at the person to want revenge. I've moved mostly past it. I mean... I'm still sad about it. I don't think I'll ever get over it, but to suddenly want revenge is not for me. It'd take more than this to make me want to hurt someone."

Ren sighed, proud in her ability to let go. "You're a stronger person that me, Nora."

She went up and hugged Ren. "Good, because my back hurts and you're going to give me a massage!"

Ren's at a loss for words. "But—?"

"Butts are for sitting, which mine will be doing as you massage my back!"

He would blame this as being part of the couple package, but this wouldn't be the first time Nora demanded such a thing, and the distraction was obvious from the start. At least it's not her feet. That's a nightmare he preferred to stay away from. He could handle shoulders and back, but not her toes.

Wiping away some water from his hair, she _booped_ him on the nose, stole Sir Scrabbles and grinned. "Fine, but don't drink any caffeine, I can't have your muscles tensing up, or else there's no point in getting a message." She kissed him on the cheek and ran off, probably to drink some coffee to mess with him. I'd be funny if it wasn't so true. "I guess I am whipped? Oh Dust, I hope Neptune and Sun don't find out. They still haven't let go of the whole tattoo on my back thing."

Knowing the storm of teasing to come his way was inevitable, Ren figured he had a few minutes of peace before Nora dragged him away. Like the way his collar opened up, he mentally willed the family scroll to fall from his sleeve. A nifty little trick he learned the cloak was capable of. Next to opening up his collar, it could attach small objects to the inner interior as if gravity was holding them in place, and then will them to drop. StormFlower was one of those items.

Pulling the parchment open, Ren unraveled the text until he found the moment he cut himself off. He began to read quickly, cutting down the seconds.

 _However, compassion comes at a great cost. When the Lies suffered enough, when the lies finally took their toll, it was said their souls developed a taste for Misfortune, to make sense of a world powered by Fortune and their lack of. Red is known as the color of Fortune, but the white from the White Lies ended up changing the color altogether, disrupting the balance between Chance. What emerged from it was Pink—a color that doesn't actually exist. And from that day onward, Lies and Misfortune have traveled hand-and-hand together, backs turned to Fortune, allies against a world that is nothing but fantasies fit for fools._

He lowered the scroll, stuck on the color of Misfortune.

"Pink is a lie, huh? I didn't know that." Ren glared at the retreating storm clouds, feeling oddly empty with them floating away, but he did get a moment to glare at a phenomenon that filled him with unknown anger. "Now I know why I hate looking at you so much."

A cold gust of wind swept under Ren's cloak, brushing cool droplets against his skin. His pink eyes burned with contempt, and he now longed for the rainclouds' return. He still held some lingering pride for his clan. "Didn't have enough room for our color, huh? It's alright. We didn't want your good luck, anyway."

A _rainbow_ towered over Lie Ren, haunting him in a seven colored bridge of fortune and light with the color red as its roof, the color of his enemy. The color wheel always did make his eyes hurt whenever he spotted one, and now he knew why.

Gripping the secrets firmly, Ren smirked with his eyes closed and finally understood the meaning behind his eyes. When mixing passion and innocence into an emotional, caring person, there's only one emotion to come out on top—compassion.

Pink was the color of compassion.

Finally understanding it, he peered down at the scroll, surprise evident. "Hn? There's only one passage left to read." He scanned over it for a moment, very interested when he read the first line of text. "Oh? This tells of a secret hand-sign to get the full power of both a Lie and Misfortune. And it's..."

"Massage time!"

Sighing, Ren hid the scroll in his sleeve; arms already out to catch the torpedo coming full force. His torturing began now. Price for being in love he supposed.

A price he'd gladly pay tenfold.

Catching her, her momentum's slowed down thanks to the cloak's gravitational properties, but Ren didn't seem to notice. What he did notice was Nora's attention captured by the rainbow hanging over his head. Any minute now he's expecting her to praise if for its beauty and all that useless mumbo-jumbo. What she actually said made his heart grow three sizes.

"Bleh! Look! It's a dumb rainbow! I hate rainbows; it means the rain's gone! I like the rain more! That's when the lightning comes out to play! How am I supposed to enjoy my massage with _that_ hanging over my head?"

Ren almost dropped her. As if he needed any more reasons to love this woman.

Looking closely at Nora, he could see why his eyes didn't mind watching her. Her outfit's mostly black, white, and pink, the colors he wore, although the proportions were skewed, but they're colors absent from a rainbow. Even her eyes, a lovely shade of turquoise, was completely lacking from the spectrum. But perhaps Nora dwelled near the side of fortune, completely swayed by bright, exuberant colors, more than his clan's ties to darkness and dishonesty?

Sir Scrabbles then popped out from behind Nora's neck, bored to the world. Its pitch-black fur contrasted nicely with Nora, and Ren found the urge to reach out and kiss her almost overbearing. Maybe she's not so innocent than he first thought. They did have a pet Grimm name Sir Scrabbles for Monty Oum's sake.

Screw it. He pulled her close and kissed her like his life depended on it.

When they broke off, her cheeks represent the color of deception quite well. "W-What was that for?"

Could it be any more obvious? "I love-love you, what other reason do I possibly need?"

Her cheeks turned into a deeper shade of pink while she squirmed pitifully in his hold. Ren may have never known how prone to embarrassment Nora actually was until he showered her in affection. How could he with her always being so direct and emotionally attached? But it's kind of turning into a guilty pleasure of his. He honestly enjoyed watching the hue of pink burn on her cheeks. The fluttering from his heart was only matched to her flustered appearance. Not to forget her shyness was only paralleled by her desire to act adorable.

"Stop saying that!"

How could he not love this woman? She's the lightning to his raincloud. The fluttering echo of light in the dark crevice of his world. Everything he could want and then some. No one could ever compare to the sacrifices she made for him.

True, Nora may have a colorful personality at times, optimistic at the worst and passionate at the best, but she's the furthest thing from a rainbow. Behind that picture-perfect smile of hers was darkness that could not overcome the light. Her pain's his pain. Her suffering reflected his like a mirror. Even her happiness beat in sync with his heart. She's the woman who believed in the man who painted himself the monster in their little world. Nora Valkyrie never gave up on the bad luck charm that was Lie Ren.

And he knew he'd never stop loving her for it.

 _Smooch_!

...

Jaune spent the last hours of the day at the area where Pyrrha and he fought. After cleaning the place up, with help from the rain, he had a Lore shard in his hand, weak right now, but getting filled with Lore as he glared up into the great unknown. This time he wouldn't let this piece escape his pocket, determined to keep everyone away from it. But if the little shard still proved to be dangerous, it only proved to be hostile to everyone but himself. Plus, he only intended it to be used by him and no one else. So if someone actually consumed this, he's not going to lose any sleep over it.

And Nora should know better by now.

Shuffling his thought, he continued to feed the Dust shard with Lore, trying to shove as much Lore as possible in a short amount of time. If only the power wasn't so damn slow, it'd be done like in two seconds, like how Aura shards worked. But Lore's just slow like that. There's nothing he could do about it. Like the problem with Penny's soul.

Biting his lip, Jaune wearied around his thoughts, careful to Lore's negative properties. But it's hard. Real hard. He didn't know what to do to help Penny. He wanted to help, but screaming Aura was way too out there for his current Aura experience. And truthfully, he wasn't even sure if she could be saved. A part of his thoughts, the darkest part where Lore lived, told him Penny was beyond saving.

A hopeless cause that's better forgotten and purged from his worries.

The worst part about it, Jaune's not too sure if that's the Lore talking or his own inner thoughts throwing him advice. They're so interlocked now that discerning between the two was next to impossible.

"Damn it, I want to help Penny. I just don't know how." He threw his head back, taking the time to gaze at the stars. "What's an Arc to do?"

And that wasn't his only problem. Pyrrha had been secretly closed-off lately with her cleaning on her own. She probably thought he wouldn't notice, but she must've forgotten what set him on his Aura path in the first place. Seeing through her panicked smiles and carefully chosen words was like breathing at this point for him. But he had little time to pry with what was eating away at her. Too many things were jumbled up on his place for anything less. And she would seek her team's help when the time came.

So Jaune was left to prepare for the future. Wasn't exactly an easy task. Penny's problem taunted him at every turn. The Vytal Tournament's approaching and his Lore control was far from perfect. There were still some step he was missing, a wall he could not break through because he lacked some crucial information that revealed its weak spot. Nothing good could come from this invisible barrier. So why? Why didn't it just go away already?

Gripping the Lore shard strongly, Jaune's emotions began to get the better of him; his Lore reacted and glowed strongly under the starlight. The sword he once imagined no longer appeared to be within reach. The dark power of Lore almost acted like it hated the idea of a sword, but that couldn't be right. Lore couldn't possibly have an influence over such a thing.

Still, this Lore problem had his insides bunched up together like a bad knot. The quest to create a sword had been one dead-end after another. Lore's just too foreign to be unraveled by simple optimism. And Penny's Aura's not doing him any favors. In fact, all this Lore and Aura problems only seem to have shown him his need to learn more about the world of both Aura and Lore.

Like a sucker punch to the gut, he never saw it coming, and it hurt to admit. All his practice proved to be lackluster, but that actually made him smile, too. The Aura expert in him reveled in the idea of finding more secrets to discover. For all he knew, Aura and Lore were limitless, and all their secrets could never be accurately discovered.

A truly perfect thought for a man consumed by the ideas of Aura and Lore.

Sighing, he didn't even know what he's looking for staring up at space. The stars hardly provided anything but light for him to see. They held no secrets, no path for him to follow. To him they're just tiny specs of dust floating aimlessly in a dark region of space. Why he bothered to stare at them was a mystery.

What good could they be?

"You sure like to sight-see, don't you Mr. Arc? You've been out here for quite some time, I was starting to worry that some Grimm got you, but it appears I was wrong. There must be a little astronomer hiding underneath all that exterior? Am I wrong?"

Jaune gasped, scared at how easily Professor Goodwitch invaded his peripheral space without making so much as a sound. Judging by the light smirk on her face, she's taking delight in his fear. Classic Glynda Goodwitch, scaring teenagers, like him, since day one of Beacon.

"Professor Goodwitch! I didn't see you there!"

Glynda relaxed, hating how fear was the go to emotion most people associated her with. She couldn't blame them. She just hated it. "You can relax; I'm not going to bite. I'm much too tired for that nonsense."

Jaune laughed a little, awkwardly rubbing his neck in a halfhearted gesture. He subtly clutched the Lore shard. "Sorry. I'm not used to people sneaking up on me. Nora kind of makes it impossible to be sneaky. And Pyrrha's even worst at it. Only Ren can do that, but usually Nora's glued to his side like a shadow."

She taunted at his excuse. "You're a paranoid person, Mr. Arc."

"I'm cautious!" Jaune argued, crossing his arms in the ultimate act of teenage defiance. "There's a difference."

"Oh, I'm sure there is." Pushing her glasses up, his professor stared up into space to find what he was glaring at. "So are you going to tell me what you're doing out here, or must I ask you a second time?"

"Just thinking."

"Beating around the bush is a child's game, Jaune. I didn't know you still liked to play games." He's not sure which surprised him more. His professor being so tact or her calling him by his first name. Of course she still reprimanded him for his silence. "Come now, Jaune, we're on a mission. We can drop the formalities. You may call me Glynda until the mission is over."

He pinched himself to make sure he's not hallucinating. Nope. Turned out he's fully awake and conscious. He also learned that Aura armor was weak to pinches.

Scratching his cheek, he lack any experience to Professor Goodwitch calling him Jaune, but even he had admit that saying his name in such a formality must get annoying in a classless environment. Still didn't mean that Jaune could just start calling his professor by her first name. It'd be too weird.

"If it's all fine by you, I think I'll stick to Professor Goodwitch, or just Goodwitch. It's too weird for me to call you by your first name. Sorry."

She shrugged with offhandedness. "Suit yourself. Just warning you, that's going to get old pretty fast. I've been called Professor Goodwitch for years now, and let me tell you, I'm already tired of hearing it." Coughing, she waved her hand in a small circle. "So? What is it that you're thinking of? You're too young to have problems that need alone time. Must be important?"

Jaune bit his lip. He couldn't tell her about Lore, or even Aura for that matter. What else could he make up? Maybe he could throw in a half-truth. "I just have a lot on my plate right now. You know with the Vytal Festival coming up and the dance. It's a lot to take in." Truth be told, he held no feelings about the dance. "And I don't want to screw up Team JNPR's first mission. My team's depending on me."

Being much more than a professor, Glynda saw through the half-truth, but she couldn't blame the Arc. The Vytal Tournament's coming up, and she knew full well what that entailed for him. There's more than just simple glory to be fought over. A bigger prize laid ahead of him, one with worse drawbacks than shame.

Folding her arms, she searched for meaning in the stars. "Are you're hoping to find comfort by looking up at the stars? What do you expect to find?"

Jaune frowned, defeated. "I don't know what else to do. I'm at my wits end."

Glynda couldn't help but smile. "Perhaps you're not looking hard enough, or maybe you're looking too hard." She pointed at a specific star that shined brighter than all the rest. "Tell me, Jaune, what do you see right there?"

He's not sure to which star she's pointing to. Maybe one of the brighter ones? "Uh? A random star?"

"That's not just any random star, that's the Polaris, but some call it the North Star. If there's any star you should remember, it's that one."

Now he's interested. "What makes the North Star so special? To me it looks the same as any star up there."

"What did I tell you about looking too hard?" she humphed, wanting to lecture him. "Just like the North Star, all the stars in space can be useful. But to answer your question, the Polaris is special because it guides." Glynda began dwelling into her past hobby of stargazing. "The North Star has been used to guide people for ages. It's called the _North_ Star for a reason. It never changes from its location, not like all the other stars, that's what makes it so valuable for finding your way. It's reliable, even in the darkest of time, but that's not to say all stars aren't useful, some just provide help in different ways."

Jaune squinted and actually found the star Professor Goodwitch was talking about. It's brighter than the rest, motionless in the sky. Compared to all the others, Polaris made all of them pale in comparison. To think it never moved. Such a mind-blowing thing to learn. No wonder that star's famous.

Still, he's confused. There's more he wanted to ask. "I guess I get the North Star, but how can they all be useful? To me it all just looks like tiny pieces of dust floating in space. They're endless. They can't possibly all be useful."

Acting very professor like, Glynda taught. "There's an old wives' tale that's as old is history itself... it tells of a time when scholars used to look to the stars for answers and guidance. And strangely enough, the star themselves did provide some of the answers they sought after. Others thought the stars told a story."

"A story?"

Glynda hummed. "Yes, stories. Although, the stories have changed throughout the years, they're always centered on the constellations—stars that create a picture. That's where the magic really happens, you know, in the constellations."

He's forced to ask. "What are the constellations?"

Glynda thought about his answer, truly pondered over it. She wanted to answer in a way that'd stick and not just fly over his head.

"The constellations are a picture. Do you know what it's like to imagine?" Jaune's not sure what she wanted him to say. Glynda, however, had no need for his input yet. "That's what the constellations are. They're just stars with a story behind them that someone made up from nothing. All they had was an idea and that was it." She smiled. "You'll be surprised at just how far _an idea_ can take you, no matter how crazy it may sound."

Jaune found his mouth suddenly dry. It's almost like Professor Goodwitch could read his mind. Of all the things she could've said, she brought up _crazy ideas_ and their ability to carry a person—the very same principle that got him to work on his Aura control, or Ren on his trust, even Pyrrha on her blood. And to think, the stars above managed to convince people to believe in their dreams, too. Even if they only looked like tiny specs of dust he could find anywhere, like in team's ceiling back at Beacon.

"People got all that..." Jaune glared, lacking any hate. "From tiny specs in the sky?"

She swiftly shot him a glare. "To you they look like nothing more than tiny specs of dust, which makes them insignificant. Those are two different interpretations, but they _both_ are insignificant, because it's all just imagination in the end. It's what you do with that imagination that counts."

Jaune couldn't find a reason to fight back the irony biting him. Imagination pushed him this far. Turning his back on the idea would be the ultimate backstab. How could he fault others for finding inspiration in the most unlikely of places? Look at him! Dust-counter extraordinaire! It was dust that allowed him to forge all his Aura weapons. Those specs taught him to not take the world seriously. They showed him just how insignificant everything really was. Big or small, his place in the universe was as important as a lone piece of dust.

He's just a piece of cosmic dust floating boundlessly in an endless cosmos.

How could he have forgotten that? That's the very _first_ lesson dust counting taught him.

No longer seeing the error of others putting their faith into the stars, Jaune smiled, thirsty for more knowledge. "Do people still use the constellations to search for stuff?"

She frowned sadly, but she's happy with his new upbeat attitude. "Some do, but it's mostly just farmers who use the constellations to tell which upcoming season are upon them. Technology has made the practice pretty much extinct."

She looked away from space to see Jaune laughing awkwardly. "You know it's funny, I always thought I could've been a farmer or something."

Glynda shared in the sentiment, chuckling with a clip tone. "I'm certain you would've been a terrible farmer."

That's unexpected. And he showed this by getting offended. "Hey! I could've been a great farmer! You never know!"

Based on the way Glynda frowned, she didn't believe so. "How am I supposed to believe you, when you didn't even know what the North Star was until only moments ago? I have faith in my students, but not _that much_ faith." Jaune crossed his arms, hating how easily his professor was poking at his humiliation. She's ruthless both on the battlefield and school, but there's a sweet side underneath that hard exterior, somewhere. "You know... I was wrong before."

Jaune paused. "Wrong about what?"

Glynda stopped stargazing to walk over to Jaune and address him directly. This couldn't be said any other way. He must know she's being a hundred percent serious. And he honestly deserved this much for all the improvement she witnessed over the weeks.

Her arms were still crossed, but she did use one to point at him. "You... I was wrong about you." He tilted his head. "Let me finish. When I first saw you, I thought you nothing more than a nobody, a failure. I didn't expect you to last too long at Beacon, more so with Pyrrha Nikos as a partner; I was more than ready to stamp your papers out of Beacon when the situation arose." Glynda smiled along the stars. "But not anymore. You've changed all that."

"W-What did I do to make you change your mind about me?"

She chuckled with a push of her specs. "You've surprised me. I've seen not only your unwavering will, but your heart as well. But most of all, it's your character that sealed the deal. After seeing how your team adores you, and even your vast improvement in skills and leadership, and to top it off with your sense of loyalty to the ones that trust you, I had no choice but to admit I was dead wrong." Glynda smiled sadly at his confused expression. "I know about your transcripts, and your deal with Ozpin. I know about the tournament and the consequences for failure. And I know what you did to protect your team."

"And..." Jaune gulped. He's afraid to ask. "And you're not mad about my fake transcripts?"

"Oh! I was for all about five seconds." She waved away the concern like a bug. Her eyes narrowed in thought. "But that was then. This is now. And now you have a tournament to worry about. Beacon Academy can't afford to let go of such a talented student. It'd be a permanent stain on our record."

Because it was Glynda Goodwitch saying this, Jaune _still_ didn't believe her. "D-Do you really believe that?"

She smirked. Professor Goodwitch actually smirked in a reassuring way! "Of course I do. Who the heck do you think recommended this early mission? You don't have time to be worrying over upcoming missions. You have a tournament to win. And I won't settle for anything less out of a promising student."

The urge to cry was strong. He had to wipe his eyes with his forearm. "Professor... I... I don't know what to say."

Glynda moved from her spot to grab Jaune's shoulder, comforting the clueless noodle. "How about we start over? So Jaune, I will only ask you once more. What are you doing out here?"

Jaune's at a loss for words. He had been the moment he walked outside to glare at the stars. But his soul did feel better. "I... I don't know. Looking for answers, I guess. I don't want to disappoint my team, but I feel like I've hit a wall I can't overcome. And time's running out."

"Then walk around it."

"Huh?"

"Walk around it..." she said simply. "There's more than one way to go about problem solving. You don't always have to charge at it head-on. Sooner or later, that's not going to work. The same strategy isn't always prone for success. Sometimes a different approach is needed."

Thinking to himself, Jaune's forced to agree. That's why he's even outside in the first place, busy gazing at the stars, looking for answers. It's like an amplified version of his dorm's ceiling back home. His normal approach to problem-solving was getting him nowhere. Discovering and breaking down Lore's concepts weren't as elementary as Aura tended to be. Light and darkness may be two halves of the same coin, but they're still at the opposite ends of the spectrum.

He's starting to see that clearer now.

Desperate, he peered up in space, imagining each star as a speck of dust. It's surprisingly easy once he got to it. But he's not beyond asking for help. "Can you tell me a little bit more about the constellations?"

Glynda grinned wisely. He already figured out her weakness. Clever child.

"Very well. I guess I can indulge you for a bit." She pointed up to a bundle of stars. "That array of stars is known as Leo the Monarch. It represents the lion that was killed by a Huntsman with limitless potential, and a heart just as pure, but that power can also hurt others around him." She pointed to stars close by. "And that there is the Great Bear, where the two brightest star point towards the North Star, guiding others to their dreams. Next is The Scorpio, the constellation that taught darkness to a naïve world. And finally..." she pointed to her favorite constellation of them all. "The Lupus, the wolf, a creature that fought to live, a creature that's both monster and human. It holds no meaning, but what you make of it."

His interest was peaked. Someway, somehow, those stories sound vaguely like his. But that's nonsense. A lion killed by a Huntsman with a bright future but dangerous powers for their allies? A bear that guided the path toward dreams? The scorpion that showed man darkness? And a wolf-like creature that was both man and monster? Those couldn't possibly relate to anything he experienced on his adventures.

Could they?

Jaune blinked. "How do you know so much about the universe—about the stars above?"

Professor Goodwitch had the gall to look reluctant. "I was bit a geek for astronomy when I was younger. People used to call me a nerd."

Glynda Goodwitch, Professor Goodwitch, Combat Professor at Beacon Academy, and right-hand Huntress to Headmaster Ozpin, used to be a geek? A nerd! No way! Jaune didn't believe that. He'd sooner believe in magic over that. Even the way she wore her glasses leaned more toward _not nerdish_.

Shaking his thoughts away, he reached out. "Do the stars really have that much to offer?"

She frowned. "You won't always find the answers you seek, or even the ones you want to find, if that's what you're asking. But there's always something to be gained stargazing."

"That's troublesome."

"Life usually is. The sooner you learn that, the better." She sighed, fixing her glasses into place. "If you're ever lost, just look to the stars for guidance. _Those tiny specs of dust_ can be useful, after all. The constellations may not hold all the answers you seek, but they can help you find your way back home. And who knows, maybe you'll find something new if you look hard enough."

He laughed, shaking with renewed excitement. "I'll give it a shot! What's the worst that can happen?"

Famous last words or perhaps the beginning of a new story? Only time would tell.

Peering up to the heaven's one last time, she breathed in a cool wisp of air. "It really is a beautiful night for stargazing. The storm cleared the entire sky. You couldn't ask for a better view." A ball of light flashed through the night sky and her eyes lit up. "Oh? Did you see that? A shooting star! I guess it's my lucky day? Time to make a wish."

She closed her eyes and wished. Jaune's too curious for his own good. "What'd you wish for?"

Even though it's obvious to the world, Glynda kept her wish bottled up. Her simple smile glowed like a star above. "Reach for the stars, Jaune. With a little luck, who knows? You might just be able to pull off a miracle and actually grab one."

"Glynda?"

She liked the way her name rolled off his tongue. "Good night, Jaune."

His professor abandoned the courtyard, perfect prose and all. The telltale clicking of her heels got softer the further she walked. And Jaune's left along with his thoughts. Fortunately for him, they're much clearer than before, and he always preferred listening to himself think. He's not so much plagued by doubt anymore.

Tired of standing, he sat down on the ground, before lying down, and thought. Arms bunched up together by his head, Jaune allowed a small smile to grace his lips as he counted the stars hanging over him. He doubted he'd ever get tired of doing this. Counting's such a relaxing treatment. It always his mind that allowed him to see things in a different light. And with so many stars to look at, there were many stories waiting to be told. And with an infinite supply, it's all the better.

Recalling the first time he discovered the secrets of Aura, Jaune switch out of Lore to Aura and held his hand out, focused on the task of creating Supernova. It had been some time since he observed the task of how his weapons came to life, usually forgoing such things, and he's itching to watch the process unfold. Just like the first time he created the technique, Aura, in the size of dust, broke away from his hand and condensed into a singular ball of Aura in the center of his palm.

Now that he looked closely upon it, the way Supernova formed in his hand was anything but spontaneous. The process was undeniably fast, Aura training had done nothing less for him, but now Jaune saw those tiny particles of Aura actually make up Supernova. They're like specs of dust coming together to create a new structure, building blocks if he truly broke it down. Those specs of Aura—small and insignificant alone—have the power to create and destroy when pushed together.

Jaune smirked at his foolishness. Even now had so much to discover. He had yet to even master the basics!

How thrilling.

He absorbed the ball of Aura a minute later, infusing it into his palm with ease. He then stopped counting, intent to call it a night soon. But first he's feeling feisty. And dare he say it? Inspired? His talk with Glynda had opened up his eyes to the endless possibilities still waiting for him. And he wouldn't let that inspiration go to waste.

Getting up, Jaune allowed his body to react for him, and before he's pondering over his actions, he fired Shooting Star straight into the waiting cosmos. There it soared through the sky, adding another light for all to see, and adding his own story into the mix. And soon Shooting Star became nothing more than a spec. He couldn't even figure out which one it was anymore, having lost track between the countless margins of lights above.

But he was far from saddened. If anything he was joyous.

In a way, those specs of dust and the stars above were similar in so many ways. Some would find the dust counting pointless and a waste of time, just like how he had frowned upon the idea of stars telling a story. And it wasn't true. None of it was. The dust proved to be the guidance he needed to change his life around. They practically wrote his story for him. And Jaune didn't think he could ever brush that sentiment away, even if they're just tiny bits of dust floating in an empty vacuum of space.

He made his own story with the dust, and others have made their own stories with the stars. So what if they're both insignificant compared to the vast universe they live in? It mattered. And even if he couldn't unravel the secrets of Lore tonight, he knew he wouldn't ever stop searching for them. Somewhere, in some region of space he had yet to explore, the answers must be waiting for him. He just had to keep searching until that day came.

He would make up his own stories along the way—his own constellations.

...

When Pyrrha walked in with a medical book tucked underneath her arm, intent to study the effects of magnetism on blood, she didn't expect to see her leader there. She more or less figured Jaune to be training, or sightseeing, or anything else. She could understand where Ren and Nora were; having past the room where Ren's giving Nora a massage, but Jaune's a bit more prone to disappearing acts. What's more odd was that she found Jaune lying down on his makeshift bed with a soft smile tucked between his cheeks.

He's humming a small tune with no real beat. More like he's just doing it for the sole act of humming, just like what Ren did earlier that morning. His Aura notebook was lying parallel on his stomach. And his eyes were focused upon the ceiling, as if there's some secret message there that Pyrrha just couldn't decode. And judging by the way his feet moved side-to-side, he was content.

Like he was watching a story unfold right in front of his eyes.

"What are you up to, Jaune?"

Her Fearless Leader laughed silently and sat up, finished with his dust counting. Even now the hobby filled him up with old hope. And it showed with the way he smiled at his confused partner.

"Me? Nothing important. Just changing up a few words in my notes, counting the dust on the ceiling, you know... same old, same old." He got up and walked past her, rubbing the Lore shard between his fingers with determination. "If you would excuse me, I have work to do. Aura's not going to wait forever."

Jaune passed her with a small kick in his step, still singing that odd-melody tune of his. She's a little curious to his good mood, but found her interests a little more piqued on the possible notes he added to his Aura notebook. Whatever discovery he made, she wanted to know. Anything to get her leader in a good mood like that must be interesting.

Reaching forward, she picked up the white notebook and found herself stumped by the words he inscribed on the front in clear, bold, black lettering.

The Constellations.

* * *

 **Author Notes:** Never stop reaching for the stars. The stories they hold are too precious to pass up.


	21. Stone

**Disclaimer:** I own nothing of RWBY.

* * *

 **Stone**

 **By: Imyoshi**

All stories have a beginning, middle and end.

Some have a prologue—a buildup to the actual story's beginning. Such things include a backstory or character exploration and development. This could include one or multiple characters. It could even include _training_ , groundwork setup, and even event buildup. But all prologues must end sooner or later.

Waking up to the bright morning rays, Jaune Arc stretched out of bed, prepared to take on whatever challenge presented itself this fine Wednesday journey.

Today was going to be a fantastic day.

The bright morning sun spoke of a pleasant adventure waiting to happen, he could just feel his blood pumping and skin tingling with rejuvenating life at the prospect of discovery. Watch out, Lore! Those pesky secrets wouldn't remain locked away forever. Professor Goodwitch's lesson gave him a better outlook on life.

A fresh mind was a dangerous weapon, none more than a budding Aura manipulator.

Forgoing the idea of waking his team up, Jaune casually strolled out the temporary living quarters, skipping Professor Goodwitch's room along the way. He held The Constellations underneath his arm, determined to revisit past notes he'd clearly forgotten or overlooked. There just had to be little details he must've ignored while training with his Lore. And if not, then having the notebook close by—in case of accidental Lore or Aura discovery—never faulted as a bad idea.

In his other hand was a Lore shard, full of dangerous power. The past few days he'd been fueling the shard with Lore, never knowing when the time would rise for its power. At the same time, he'd been adding Aura to the remaining Dust shards before heading to bed with each roughly containing the destructive power of four Supernovas. Some held less while others held a bit more.

Compared to Aura shards, Jaune hated crafting Lore shards; they required a higher level of control than Aura. Worst of all, they gathered within the Dust shard in an agonizing slow pace. This already made the arduous process maddening. He loved to be quick and fast-moving, not agonizing slow and tempered. That was all Ren.

Passing the compound, he peered around, accounting for how the rainstorm practically washed away the trash. Thanks to the heavy rains and harsh winds, their mission was practically cleaned away and it left a nice, misty dew to wake up to. Odd that in all the years that have past, it failed to rain over the compound until they visited, but Jaune refrained from commenting on it. Sure, the tombstones kind of killed the mood, but that's the village's job and not theirs. With a final glance, he continued on pacing, eventually coming to that stream his team found day one.

Taking a seat on the grass, he pulled off his hoodie and shoes, quickly dousing his feet into the cool water as he focused on rereading old passages he'd written about Lore. The Lore shard's infused into his hand, clutched between his fingers as he slowly added Lore into the Dust shard. The darker it got, the better he felt.

Finding the very first passage, it told of the fight between the Death Stalker and him, the scorpion that essentially showed him the power of shadows, the dark side of the light. At the time, Jaune only described Lore's possible existence and the negative aspects it played on his emotions. Oum! He didn't even have a name for it at the time. The next passage proved to be better, describing in detail how the dark power fed off negativity—like the Grimm—and couldn't coexist together with Aura.

Jaune remembered that day well.

Lore required a different form of problem-solving than Aura. Aura could be tackled fast and head-on. Lore required a different touch. Problems weren't solved with brute force of will, but consideration and contemplation of two opposing forces of power, a real brainteaser. In the end, he needed outside help to achieve this goal, and Blake answered the call by showing him an option he never knew existed.

"Blake..." Jaune grinned. He missed his mysterious companion. He hadn't seen much of her lately. He would have to fix that when he got back. "Maybe I'll ask how their trip to Vale went. I'm hoping she's got some good stories. I bet Zwei's driving her nuts."

The noodle could still remember the first story Blake ever told him, the one about Ragnarok and endless darkness. He personally didn't believe much in fairytales, but the message spoke to him in more ways than one. By learning to repent, the people swallowed in darkness managed to save their own souls by embracing the fear and trusting the shadows. That message had rocked his world, but what really equalized his journey was Blake's parting words. Even now he still remembered them.

It kind of helped that he wrote the quote down in his notebook.

Locating the passage, Jaune tried to sound like Blake, failing terribly at it. "Embracing your fears and not allowing them to control you are two different things. It takes courage to open your arms to the darkness."

Laughing at his own absurdity, more so with him currently powered by Lore, he smiled at the quote. That one thing Blake had said opened his eyes to a brand new world. And in that world, he opened his soul to the darkness, allowing the Lore to have control, just like Aura. And it had responded with power and understanding. No longer had his Aura been trying to fight against it, because he hadn't been afraid of it anymore.

He hadn't been afraid of the dark power anymore. And that revealed to him a world of wonder and power, Black Hole, Gravity, and Outer Space breathed their first breaths soon after. Lore, just like Aura, had given him strength, speed, reflexes, and overall boost to his senses. The only key differences turned out to be velocity and temperature. Where Aura was hot, Lore decided to be cold. Aura liked to move fast. Lore took its time. Aura even ran around, free from restraints such as gravity. Lore had structures and rules, bending Aura to a pressure only it could be feel. One purposely loved to fight in the spotlight while the other stood back and hid in the shadows.

Jaune smirked, comparing the two to a cliché verse. "Two different powers, both still two sides of the same coin, all still unbelievable confusing. Yup! That's my life in a nutshell."

In a devilishly good mood, he flipped through a few more notes, landing on an event that drained the blood from his cheeks and killed the mood instantly—the day Nora almost died.

Killing his smile, he glared intensely at the passage, remembering that day all too well. That had been the day he learned of Lore's true nature—the power of the Grimm. Everything after only went downhill real fast. Nora had consumed his experimental Lore shard, having mistaken it for an Aura shard, and the dark power tore her Aura and body apart. He might even say soul if needed to.

A training trip that went south, he had been making leaps and bounds with his Lore control. Sure, the power moved slowly, everything Aura wasn't, but progress had been made. Things were shaping up. Then everything turned from bad to worse real fast. And it never really was the same after that.

Honestly, he didn't like thinking about it, no one did. He hoped to forget about the gruesome details by a stroke of luck, but he couldn't ever erase the memory of Nora gasping for breath with them practically helpless to watch her suffer in agony. He'd never seen Ren so broken up before. No one had. And things only escalated with the inclusion of the Leos. It wasn't enough that Death happened to be around the corner, but a pride of Leos had wanted to make matters a living hell.

Jaune could still remember barely fending off the Grimm, fighting alongside his partner in a show of skill and combination.

The fighting had ultimately ended up in their favor, but a Monarch Leo had shown up and threw the scales out of proportion. The Monarch Leo proved to be impervious to Excalibur's power, bone-plating far too dense to simply cut through. Jaune just didn't have the stamina to fully utilize his power at the time; he had been force to finish off the Grimm with his bare hand, left utterly exhausted.

Till this day, he still couldn't believe he shoved his hand into the Monarch Leo's mouth, and then imploded it from the inside out with the power of Supernova. Still sent shivers down his spine. Good shivers.

The Arc sighed. "As if that wasn't enough... Then the Sloth King showed up."

That fight turned out to be something else entirely. Pyrrha and Jaune had used up all their power, and Lore proved to be ineffective against the Grimm's might. He still hadn't put two-and-two together and realized that Aura aimed to the Grimm's weakness, while Lore towered over Huntsmen. He had been more preoccupied with visually seeing Ren fight with Nora's hammer. For such a slow moving creature, its speed and power defied what he had expected. Oh? And the Sloth King was impressive, too.

Ren still managed to beat the monster, winning against impossible odds, but he had done something Jaune would've never done, at least not at the time. Not with that prior mindset. Ren spared The Sloth King and formed a kinship with a beast that lacked emotion. The Lie had reached out and connected with a Grimm, a monster aided by the same power that almost took Nora away from him. But in the end, luck favored the Lie, and everything turned out for the better. Misfortune finally spared them the grief of battle.

In the aftermath, after discovering the deadly truth about Lore, Jaune's perception of Lore grew weary. He still didn't fear the power, he could never with it being part of him, but Jaune made sure to keep it arm's length till this day. Things never really went back to normal after that. His control remained, but the dynamics certainly changed, and eventually he hit an invisible wall he couldn't get around. Philosophy began being tested and trust skewed.

 _Because if I'm right... then that means the Grimm have souls_

Getting lost in The Constellations, Jaune searched for some hidden meaning in the past stories. He didn't want to admit it, hating the taste it left in his mouth, but all evidence pointed to the contrary. Lore's the power of the Grimm. The dark power came from the manifestation of the soul. Theoretically, that meant the soulless beasts weren't so soulless after all. They simply lacked Aura.

Banging his head with the notebook, he tiredly leaned back with a heavy sigh, resting his back on the grassy floor. All this soul searching reminded him why he bothered keeping Lore locked away in the first place. The power of the Grimm? If that's Lore's power, then how could he feasible trust it? It didn't make any sense. Yet, Ren not only trusted the hazardous power, he opened his soul and heart to it.

Jaune failed to comprehend how he could simply do that without worrying about his own wellbeing?

Then again, he understood completely. Unlike him, Ren hated his Aura with a deadly passion. The Lie wanted nothing more than to trap it and lock it away into a cage, where its influence could never see the light of day. And when offered the very power to do so, Ren not only embraced the darkness, he lived for it—lived _with_ it!

Sir Scrabbles was a testament to his faith in Lore.

Glaring, he sat up, shoulders hunched as he flipped through a few more pages of notes. Little things popped out at him like how Aura was meant to fight for the user and Lore acted more defensive-like, or Lore's properties to erase all evidence of Aura within a body. All these notes formed a structure of Lore's general background, and he didn't like it because they offered no hints for him getting past the barrier blocking him.

Reaching the end, he closed The Constellations, not wanting to read about the time he uncovered the power known as Dark Matter or the pack of Beowolves. What'd it matter to him? He couldn't wield that technique. Jaune couldn't even create a sword out of Lore. What chance did he have mastering this dark power if he couldn't even forge a weapon from it?

Throwing the notebook onto his hoodie, he frowned and scratched his head. "This isn't getting me anywhere. I don't know what I'm doing wrong?" He's tired of worrying over this. "Forget it; I'm just going to let my feet soak for a bit. Maybe it'll come to me if I relax."

Perhaps today wasn't going to be adventures as he earlier hoped.

...

Waking up before the girls, Ren immediately noticed the lacking presence of a certain leader.

He silently removed himself from the room, wondering where Jaune went. It wasn't like his leader to dismiss them without leaving some way of letting them know, at least now he did that. Ren still remembered the time Jaune had vanishing acts and skipped meals. Pyrrha was a mess during those episodes in their life.

Figuring he should locate Jaune, knowing he was prone to danger like his girlfriend, Ren's actions were halted when his stomach grumbled in annoyance. For a minute he tried to ignore the hunger pains, but a losing battle was a losing battle, and he caved soon enough. Breakfast was the most important meal of the day for a reason.

Heading into the kitchen, he went through the motions, all too familiar with the process to miss a step. First things first, he had to prepare Nora's breakfast, she's bound to wake up to the smell of pancakes, but his mind's on other matters, like his family's scroll. Would it be unethical to simply forgo cooking Nora a healthy breakfast in favor of indulging in the scroll's inner secrets?

Nope.

If anything, the bump in their status-quo obligated him to keep her happy. And that caused Ren to happily sigh in the flipping of their breakfast. "The price of love, I guess."

Finishing the pancake making process, he barely set the table before Nora charged in with a sleepy Pyrrha and slightly disheveled Professor Goodwitch. They all sat down with a different approach. Nora literally plotted her butt down and started banging her forks in hunger. Pyrrha yawned and almost appeared to be dozing off again, most likely woken up by her fellow female. And Professor Goodwitch had a modest pose that's betrayed by her tangled up locks.

Ren wouldn't dare comment on them.

Handing them all a plate of fluffy brown mountains—with Nora getting a generous amount—Ren kissed Nora on the head before taking a seat next to her. They ate silently, none of them morning people like Jaune and Ren. It wasn't until he was plucking and washing his and Nora's dishes did Professor Goodwitch notice a fellow blonde missing.

"Where is Mr. Arc?"

Ren shrugged, dishes done. "He must've gone out for a walk."

"Jaune-Jaune does that a lot!" Nora added with a face covered in maple syrup.

The Lie found it odd that he considered licking it off, and before he did something that would give Nora a heart attack, he leaned toward the door. "I can go find him if you like, professor?"

Glynda chewed in her answer. "No need. Whatever cleanup that needed to be done, I'm sure the storm took care of. I shall inspect the compound before checking in with Shiragiku. You may take the time to relax and prepare your departure back to Beacon. But don't expect to be leaving anytime soon, the airship takes at least an hour to arrive. And that's after I call it."

Nora threw her arms up. "Yea! Day off!"

Glynda tapped her mouth with a napkin. "If you would excuse me, I must do my inspection. Thank you for the meal, Mr. Lie. It was quite delicious. The rest of the day is yours, but please have your things packed before the airship arrives. I don't want to waste the pilot's time... or mine."

Glynda Goodwitch left the room in a soothing silence, the threat of detention hung in the air. Message definitely received.

The minute she's gone, Ren's leaving through the back door, but not before giving Nora a quick smooch. "I'm going to go find Jaune."

Her cheeks reddened quickly. "Okay! Have fun! I'll be here! Sir Scrabbles needs a bath!"

There was a crash in the opposite room. Sounds of stuff falling made it apparent a certain Grimm was hiding underneath a pile of junk. And both Pyrrha and Ren had to admit the Grimm could move when it really wanted to.

Almost cancelling his plans for the sake of basking in Nora's space, Ren peered over to the champion, both knowing a solidarity Jaune shouldn't exist. "You coming with, Pyrrha?"

The champion didn't hear him; she was almost comatose in her seat. The mention of returning home so soon didn't bold too well with Pyrrha. That meant she had to accept the Maiden powers sooner than she had anticipated. Not like the timetable allowed for much freedom, but another day would've been appreciated. Now she didn't even have that to look forward to.

Pyrrha's not afraid to admit it, she's frightened, terrified honestly. Her act yesterday put up a brave front, but that was all it was, an act. Going back home so soon? She just wasn't ready, but this must be one of those _life wasn't fair_ moments. And she loathed it.

When Pyrrha refused to answer, Ren narrowed his eyes by the slightest of margins, Aura channeled. "Is everything alright, Pyrrha? You seem stressed?"

Holding back a gasp, she unevenly smiled. Her uncharacteristic silence and anxiety sold her out. "Who? Me? Never better! Everything's perfectly fine. Why do you ask?"

The margins narrowed a tad more. That's the worst lie he'd ever heard. He didn't need his eyes to tell him that. "I asked if you wanted to go find Jaune with me."

There's that guilty smile of hers. "Oh? Sorry, I'm still waking up." Pyrrha glanced over to the retreating Nora. "No, I think I'll stay with Nora. Maybe help her give Sir Scrabbles a bath."

Ren refrained from narrowing his eyes anymore, not planning to give away his secret interrogation. "Are you sure you're alright? You look stressed?"

Her words were a jumbled mess. "Ah! It's nothing. I just had a nightmare, that's all."

Why must Pyrrha lie to him? The pink glow encompassing her body burned criminally under Ren's nonchalant glare. "Suit yourself then, I'll go find him. Try to make sure Nora doesn't break anything. We don't want Professor Goodwitch slapping us with detention."

The second Ren left the building, she slumped back in her chair, air exhaling. A heartfelt laugh escaped her. She hated lying, she never enjoyed it, but if Headmaster Ozpin expected her to do nothing, then he's not as all-knowing that she'd initially believed. Pyrrha Nikos didn't become the four-time Mistral Regional Tournament champion through skill and dumb luck alone; a little planning was required for such an honor.

Contingency plans were a champion's best friend.

She couldn't reveal the truth of everything—or she would've the moment she saw her friends—she's _honor-bound_. Pyrrha's word was on the line. But no could blame her for having a friend who saw through lies. Technically, she never broke her word. It may not prove much in the grand schemes of things, but if Pyrrha could plant the seeds of doubt, which should be more than enough to get them to pay extra-close attention to any abnormalities in her person if any complications occur during the Aura transfer, then her Fearless Leader should be able to fix things.

Pyrrha Nikos trusted _no one_ but Jaune Arc to mess around with her Aura.

Sighing, she rubbed her head and stood up, intending to ease her troubling mind for a bit. The fear's getting to her, and she's hoping that Nora could distract her thoughts long enough until their later departure. For now she's going to partake in giving Sir Scrabbles a bath.

What could go wrong?

Walking into the bathroom, she's met with a mess of soap, towels, and a very stubborn Sir Scrabbles latching onto Nora's neck, refusing to budge into the soapy tub. For such a little guy, it was surprisingly strong and stubborn—two qualities that were the perfect blend of Nora and Ren's.

Nora's visibly straining to pull the Grimm off. "C'mon, Sir Scrabbles! It's bath time! The single greatest moment of the day! You love bath time!"

Pyrrha giggled. "Apparently, he doesn't, Nora." She smiled when Nora finally managed to pry the Grimm from her face. "How hasn't Professor Goodwitch seen Sir Scrabbles yet?"

Smirking evilly at her darling Grimm, Nora dunked the Grimm in, getting it all nice and wet. The moment Sir Scrabbles resurfaced, looking positively bored; a sure sign of anger and exhaustion, Nora began scrubbing its scalp with a loofah and soap. A bottle of Ren's Narudo Spiral Shampoo, an orange colored and scented fragrance that was practically impossible to hide in their room, was being used by Nora to wash Sir Scrabble's funk.

Pyrrha had a sneaking suspicion the thunder girl just enjoyed having Ren's scent mixed over her Grimm.

Grinning like a madwoman, Nora splashed more water over the Grimm's head. "Didn't you know, Pyrrha? Sloths are notorious for being sneaky."

The champion said nothing more and sat next to Nora, enjoying the way Sir Scrabbles sulked in the tub. Apparently, sloths were notorious bath-haters, too. For the little guy nudged against Nora's attempts to scrub its fur with a very soapy loofah. This only made Nora mad and she scrubbed the little guy much harder.

Feeling bad for the Grimm, Pyrrha plucked the loofah out of Nora's hands. "Maybe you should try being more gentle with Sir Scrabbles. You can be a little rough, Nora."

If anyone but Pyrrha had said that, their legs would be broken. "You think so? Pyrrha nodded. "Is what Pyrrha saying true, my little Grimm?" Her bundle of joy blinked, stomach grumbling. "Oh! Looks who's hungry! I'll go fetch you some yummy rock candy. Pyrrha will stay here and finish giving you a bath!"

Nora disappeared in a flash, leaving the confused girl with an equally confused Grimm. They stared at each other, stuck in a standstill. But Pyrrha eventually gave in and gently scrubbed Sir Scrabbles's scalp. The Grimm quickly melted underneath her magic fingers, liking this way better than its caretaker's way. But the action forced the girl to reconsider her position in the world.

Alone with humanity's greatest threat, she bit her lip at the hypocrisy and swiftly tugged the Grimm up. She held it arms out, sad inside. "Am I a hypocrite?" Sir Scrabbles wisely remained mute. "I'm keeping secrets from my friends, but it's for a good cause, so it's alright. Right? You know a little reinsurance would be helpful."

The Grimm tested her reaction by tilting its head. She's defensive. "Don't look at me like that! What am I supposed to do? This is bigger than some silly tournament. People's lives are on the line. I don't know what to do. I've tried setting things up so I have a fallback, but what if that doesn't work? Then what?"

Having absolutely no idea what the champion's talking about, it slowly _booped_ Pyrrha on the nose for good luck. She frowned. "What kind of solution is that? You think a boop is going to solve anything? It won't. That's like trying to cut Jaune's sword with Aura—wait a minute! That's it!"

The champion shook the poor Grimm dry. "I'll use my Aura to send a signal to Jaune before I meet up with Ozpin. Now I just have to hope Jaune picks up on it." She hugged the Grimm tightly. "You really are amazing."

Maybe Sir Scrabbles should reconsider who it took baths with.

...

When Ren did find his leader, he's soaking his feet in the river, acting very suave for a man with the world against him. His hoodie's tossed to the side in a rare show of lazy fashion. And he's busy holding what he could only presume was a Lore shard. It definitely resembled the color of one with its pitch-black palette. And no one should consider it strange for Ren to suddenly tense up and get a bit adhesive about approaching his leader. The last Lore shard still haunted his memories like his family's demise, except he knew the dark powers dangerous attributes to be true, not false like his childhood memories.

Approaching silently, he hovered over his leader, not surprised when Jaune suddenly spoke. "What's going on, Ren?"

How Jaune managed to feel his presence astounded him, but he pushed that admiration aside. Fear had a strong grip over him. "You're making another one of _those_?"

"Yea, never know when I'm going to need more. Just make sure you keep Nora away from it this time." Jaune laughed, flicking Mr. Casanova with a teasing smile. "Actually, try to keep her away from the Aura shards while you're at it, we're on low supply. She's been spoiling Sir Scrabbles when I'm not looking. We're down to eight shards."

"Dully noted."

Jaune hid a smile. "... You're not going to stop her, are you?"

His ninja teammate at least had the decency to look away. "Just don't tell me where you hide them, and it'll all work itself out."

The leader laughed with an undertone of sadness, pocketing the shard away. "Man, she's already got you wrapped around her finger. I can't wait to tell Sun and Neptune. They're going to love this."

Ren glared but contributed nothing more to the matter. He sat next to Jaune, pulling his footwear off before throwing his own feet into the cool water, and he had to admit the water felt nice on the skin. The Lie then reached to tap the force holding his cloak together, unclasping it all the way down the middle, unconcerned for his leader's treacherous smirk.

The silence was nice, but he knew it wouldn't last too long.

"So?" Jaune elbowed, breaking the peace. "Since we're already on the subject, where is Nora?"

His friend sighed, leaning forward to play with the running water. "Busying giving Sir Scrabbles a bath. And I'm guessing her and Pyrrha going to talk about some random topic, you know how they get."

Jaune searched for a silver lining. He found one. "At least you don't have to worry about finding a date to the dance. That must be a load off your mind?"

Ren rolled his sleeves up, marinating in the perfect sunny day. "I already miss her."

His leader scoffed. "Monty, you really are whipped. Here..." Jaune reached for his hoodie, pulling out a shell from the pocket. "Drown your sorrows with this magic conch shell I found in the river."

Ren reached out and held up the shell, eyeing it with disdain and misconception. He shook it to sell his point. "You know this is geographically misplaced, right? There's no coastline for hundreds of miles."

"That's what makes it magical!"

Emotionless, Ren tossed the shell into the river, ignoring the way it got washed away by the stream, concerned over more pressing matters. The silence lasted a lot longer this time, but it's nothing more than a mask. Eventually, the Lie's forced to darken the mood, needing to keep the dynamic alive.

"You know Pyrrha's hiding something, right?"

Jaune waved Ren's concern off with an offhanded wave. " _Look_ who you're asking. Of course I know. Pyrrha's terrible at hiding her emotions. Even I can see through her. I've been able to since I started my journey to create Aura, have you forgotten that. She's got these two smiles of hers. Her normal everything is alright _hello there_ smile, And her guilty _I'm sorry_ smile."

If Ren was at all surprised by his leader's lack of concern, he didn't show it. If anything, he should've known from the start. After all, Jaune did manage to see through Pyrrha's fib all those months ago. Of course he saw her fake enthusiasm a mile away.

Silly of him to think otherwise. "And you're not going to confront her about what's bothering her? Last time she kept to herself... it wasn't a pretty sight."

Jaune leaned back and smiled underneath the sun's rays. "I trust my partner. I'm sure whatever's troubling her; she'll eventually tell us or figure it out for herself. Besides, these things always tend to work themselves out. And I kind deserve this for what I put her through. So what's the harm?"

If that wasn't begging for Lady Luck to roll her dice, Ren didn't have a clue what was. But their troubling thoughts came to a screeching halt when a loud _howl_ resonated from nearby. A second later his leader felt a wave of Outer Space hit him from within the nearby woods.

Neither moved a single muscle until Jaune edged forward. "Should we go check it out?"

Ren eyed his leader. "What makes you think that's a good idea?"

He shrugged and grinned. "I don't know... I'm feeling adventurous. And who knows, we might learn something. Maybe it'll help me with my Lore control?"

The Lie considered the options given. Follow his leader into the nearby forest and possibly run into a pack of Grimm, who may or may not attack them, or remain here and pretend nothing bad happened while her leader most likely ventured on his own. With those options presented, he wistfully wished for that magic conch shell back.

Wondering if Lady Luck had actually rolled those dice, Ren sighed and dusted himself off. "Well, what are we waiting for? An invitation?"

"Must you always be so sarcastic?"

"It's called raining on your parade, and yes."

Grinning, Jaune quickly put his shoes on and ran toward the forest. He wasn't kidding earlier. Maybe they really would learn something. After the last encounter with a pack of Grimm, both had learned about a few more hidden properties of Lore. And he was anxious to sink his teeth into the possibility of more.

Brushing past trees and vegetation, Ren followed after his leader, knowing full well Jaune could track down a Grimm with his Outer Space. The run proved to be short. And soon the two were hiding behind a tree to get a better look of what appeared to be a dying Beowolf and its pack surrounding it. It definitely howled like it was dying. And to avoid detection, they climbed up a few branches of the tree to get a better view.

Blended perfectly into the woodwork, each watched with acute curiosity, having never seen a dying Grimm by the hands of Mother Nature. They silently wondered what would happen next. Possibly another Lore miracle?

The Beowolf howled out in pain, gasping for invisible life. The deep gash across its stomach was impossible to miss, so in turn was the blood flowing out in an endless stream. It thickened the forest floor, coating the vegetation with nourishment. The poor creature clawed for help, reaching out to its pack to do something, anything. Both the humans were helpless to intervene, watching the Alpha Beowolf heed its companion's wails. And if Jaune and Ren expected something magical and life-saving to happen, then their wake-up call was here and now.

 _Gnaw_!

Right through the Grimm's neck, the Alpha tore through the flesh in a quick fluid of motion with its teeth, ripping the dying Grimm's throat out in animalistic terror. It severed all ties to life, crushing in intent to relieve, not to main for sick enjoyment. And when the Beowolf tried to breathe in one more gasp of air, its body finally stopped moving, lost to Death's iron-grip.

Ashes soon began to break the Grimm's body apart, becoming dust in the wind.

Both the males felt their stomachs churn.

Seeing a Grimm's final moments contrasted vastly to being the one causing the final act. The gesture's almost saddening. Fading ash and dust covered the air, leaving behind a bitter taste neither of them appreciated. Nearby Grimm actually shunned their vision away, acting very docile for what could be considered normal behavior. The scene hit them both awfully hard, but Jaune's the one detached from the entire spectacle.

Ren had to grab Jaune's shoulder to anchor him back. "You okay, Fearless Leader?"

Jaune frowned, not sure what to think anymore. "I'm... confused... I just saw a Grimm kill one of its own. How can a Grimm just up and kill one of its own like that? It doesn't make any sense to me."

The Lie pouted, forming a thin line. Jaune's not so used to death. The only ones his leader had ever seen—outside of what he personally knew—were the killings brought on by others that hunted down the Grimm. Ren's experience with the end game just differed from Jaune's. He knew why the Grimm did such a thing, but even he's caught off-guard after witnessing the act.

Keeping it simple, Ren simply answered. "Because it was in pain, the Grimm ended its suffering. Wouldn't you do the same if one of us were dying?"

Emotions of anger and panic suddenly gripped Jaune's soul. "But I wouldn't let that happen! I would do anything in my power to save you!"

Ren smiled sadly at his friend. "But let's just say you couldn't. Let's say the power you needed to save us just wasn't there. Then what? Would you let us suffer for Monty knows how long? Or would you end our lives right then and there to alleviate our pain?"

Jaune glared, bunching his fist together. "That's not fair, Ren."

He sighed and glanced over to the dust-fading Grimm, squeezing his gentle-hearted leader's shoulder. "You can't save everyone, Jaune. It's foolish to think otherwise. Sometimes... sometimes you're just too late to help. It's how the world works." Ren actually smiled. "I'm actually relieved they did that. No one wants to watch one of their friends endlessly suffer."

Jaune stayed quiet and simply watched the Beowolf turn to dust. Minutes ticked on by and most of the Beowolves had scattered after its demise, but a few stragglers remained behind, mostly younglings. Some played in the bushes, while others snuggled up together in a bundle. Each little action jumbled his thoughts and he was stuck replaying Ren's advice over-and-over again.

 _You can't save everyone, Jaune._

Of course he wanted to argue. Of course he was stubborn to a fault. He wanted to say _no_. Damn it! But the more he listened, the harder it became to argue. Those minutes soon turned into half an hour and it might've lasted longer if Ren hadn't coughed midway to the hour mark.

Peering off to the side, he found the ninja glaring intensely at a scroll. What confused the Arc was the jumble mess of scratches and squiggles written there. "Whatcha reading? It's just a bunch of scribbles."

Ren held the scroll up to his chest, smirking a tiny bit. "You need my eyes to be able to read the lies written here. Without them, it just looks like utter nonsense." Jaune's still waiting for an answer. "Apparently, not only could me clan's eyes accomplish feats of misfortunate and lies, but they managed to find a way to cross the powers together to be able to create techniques like mirror distortions and doppelgängers."

Jaune's definitely interested. "Oh? And how do you pull that off?"

"I'm just getting to that. It's the last passage written here. But If I recall correctly, it had to do with a special hand-sign." Ren unfolded the scroll, finding the very passage. He read it out loud for his friend. "Here it is. And it says..."

Ren paused, reading over the passage before he allowed his eyes to widen by the barest of margins. He then laughed. He just laughed at his utterly ironic it all was. No could blame him otherwise.

Jaune titled his head at Ren's sudden laugh. "What? What's so funny?"

"Nothing..." Ren sighed contently. "I just find it amusing the hand-sign required to cross Misfortune and Lying together has to do with two fingers." He held up his hand, fingers crossed. "It's ridiculous; _these_ two fingers together allow my bad luck and heritage to mix while concentrating on my Evil Eyes."

Jaune widened his eyes. "You mean—?"

"Exactly..." The Lie hummed. "In order to use my Misfortune to the fullest, I just need to cross my fingers wherever no one can see them, preferably my back, but anywhere will do. And then rely on my Aura and concentration to do the rest. Based on what the writings in here say, I can summon mirror mirages or clones by splitting up my current Aura." When Jaune said nothing, he peered over to find his leader thinking clearly. "What?"

Jaune just smirked, leg propped up so he could wrap both his arms around it. He had this cold look in his eyes, one meant to tease relentlessly. Ren didn't like it. He also didn't like Jaune counting out the oddities with his fingers.

"Hn, let's see here. You have hidden weapons, you came from a clan, you like wearing black, mirror clones, and now you have a hand-sign?" Jaune smirked, poking Ren in the shoulder. "You know this really makes you a ninja now. Do I need to point out your shoes?"

"Shut up."

"So..." he urged, bumping Ren's shoulder. "Try it out. Let's see these Lie powers of yours in action. C'mon, I'll be your test dummy. Hit me with some bad luck. Give me your best shot. Or you know what? Try making a mirror clone! That's gotta be something interesting to see!"

Tempted by his own greed, Ren crossed his fingers, out of sight of Jaune's view. The sensation felt weird, not-normal was the best phrase he could use to describe it, even then it felt weak. Aura molded in ways he couldn't properly describe, building a network between his fingers and Evil Eyes, but it came crashing down when his Aura backlashed and rebounded violently.

The force almost knocked him off the branch.

Ren grabbed his wrist, forcing the shaking to stop. "I don't know what happened? A mirror clone should've been sitting on this tree with us. At least that's what I was going for."

Jaune waved away the mistake. "Ah! Don't worry about it. My fingers blew up on me too when I first created Shooting Star. It happens. Just keep trying."

They spent the other half of the hour in the tree with Ren trying repeatedly to create a mirror distortion, focusing as hard as possible. The mirror clone never came, not even close. Each attempt ended up in failure. Each failure ended up stinging his hand in more ways than one. Jaune just sat there and watched every attempt go up in smoke, finding the lack of progress disheartening but contending all the same. It was nice not being the only one to be stuck.

After some unprecedented attempt, Ren threw in the towel, glaring spitefully at his aching fingers. "I can't do it. Something keeps going wrong every time I try to establish a connection with my Aura."

His leader had the gall to look magnanimous. "So we've both hit a wall."

Forming a fist, Ren searched for lies hidden in his hand, but his eyes revealed nothing. Whatever the problem stemmed from, it had nothing to do with outside forces. This one was all him.

Sighing, he stared at his leader. "Is this how you feel all the time?"

He laughed. "More or less, but you get used to it."

"It must be frustrating."

"Again, you get used to it."

Remaining quiet, the duo allowed eyes and minds to wander. Ren was busy trying to figure out what went wrong. The connection between his fingers and eyes he could feel, but his Aura nastily rebounded and forced his fingers roughly apart before he could establish a connection between the two. Worst of all, his hand wouldn't stop shaking until he grabbed hold of it. His Aura just refused to heed his call.

Having a similar problem, but with Lore, Jaune studied a couple of younger Beowolves playfully sparring, acting as rambunctious children, rather than enemies of humanity. They fight only with their claws, jaws not meant to be used. Their Lore's Outer Space proved to be relatively dismissal at best, but he found the spar fun to watch.

Fascinated by the fight, he noted how the slightly older, larger one had a boney texture, while the younger one lacked such a thing. He was amazed about that feature of the Grimm. As they got older, Grimm got stronger defenses. Grimm didn't have fancy weapons or tactics. But what they lacked in firepower, they made up for in armor. Armor didn't heal, it protected. The body healed injuries with warm blood. Cold armor shielded the body from ever taking damage, acting as the ultimate defense. The bone-plating acted as the Grimm's armor and weapon, proving to Jaune that the greatest offense was sometimes the best defense.

"That little one's about to lose..." Ren remarked, pointing at the younger Grimm gnawing at the bone-plating.

Jaune wanted to know why. "What makes you say that? They both have almost the same Outer Space. It's anyone's fight."

The ninja shook his head, pointing at the way the younger Beowolf got swiped aside by a boney shoulder. "You see there, it tried to take on the Grimm without the power to match its defense. That won't always work." Ren knew a thing or two about opposing forces. "You can't always brute force it. Sooner or later, that's not going to work. A different approach is needed to get around that problem."

Jaune's heart skipped a beat.

Those words sounded awfully similar to Professor Goodwitch's, except he's able to piece the dots together this time. Quickly reaching for The Constellations, he flipped through the pages, searching for a new page to add some possible notes in. He knew that Lore somewhat reflective defensive power, but he hadn't realized how far it went. A Grimm didn't get flashier, they got bulkier. Power naturally came with progression, but what separated a Grimm's rank wasn't style or speed, but their boney structure, their defensive power—their Lore!

Closing the notebook, Jaune narrowed his eyes, possibly figuring out the problem to his lackluster progression. The wall he'd hit couldn't be broken down with brute force; Lore's defensive power prove too great for normal collision on tactics. Jaune needed to—!

 _Walk around it..._

Heart racing, he grabbed his chest, wanting nothing more to push his Lore to the utmost limits, and he could only do that by needing the defensive power to aid him in battle. How could his Lore respond without a reason to? His Aura did. It responded when he needed it most in the heat of battle, not while training in peace. Not when his soul refused to feel threatened.

Jaune Arc felt a theory building up and he wanted nothing more than to test it.

Standing up on the branch, he grabbed Ren's shoulder and forced him up. "C'mon! I got an idea! Let's spar! I don't think we've ever sparred before. I'm interested, aren't you?"

Ren blinked. "Not really... Well, maybe I am, just a little bit. But why now?"

Jaune stepped back, glowing that impressive array of darkness. "Maybe I don't have enough practice with Lore when it came to fighting? Training only helps so much. Some practice could probably show me what's holding me back. And I know you want to try out those Lie styles, I know you do. We can both practice this way."

Peering with uncontrolled skepticism, Ren ever so slightly narrowed his eyes, willingly the base of his collar to close up. He took a few steps back from her leader, Evil Eyes glowing in retaliation. There's no way he could lie and say he wasn't the least bit interested, because his soul begged to differ. The man wanted more than anything to test the limits of his power and strength, but more than anything, he wanted to surpass his current potential.

Ruby never proved a challenge for such a thing.

Now his Fearless Leader, that's a different story altogether.

Jumping off from the branch, the pack of youngling Beowolves quickly scattered back, surprised by the human's unexpected visit. The Lore from the cloak lessened the acceleration of the fall, preventing any damage.

It's all instinct.

The Lore's negative aspects were quickly influencing Ren's negative emotions. "Don't go crying to Pyrrha when I beat you."

Jaune's in the same boat, allowing his emotions to corrupt. He glared down at Ren from above the branch with a humor-filled smirk. "I promise not to mess up your face too bad, don't want Nora trying to kill me in my sleep." Sliding on the bark of the tree, Jaune summoned three Gravities as he descended down onto the battlefield. "Pull, Gravity!"

Reaching the ground, three Gravities danced around Jaune, floating both up and down in a sing-song dance routine, two up and one down and vice-versa. Of course Ren knew it's only his leader doing that, taking pleasure in his heightened control. Jaune refused to even control them with his hands, smirking with the negativity of Lore leaching out his body.

The Arc had managed so far since the first time he learned to control the power.

"Pull, Gravity?" Ren crossed his arms, unable to recount any moment of Jaune uttering that phase. "Now that I think about, I don't think I've ever heard your battle cry for summoning those orbs."

Jaune tapped his foot forward, grin surprisingly innocent in a den full of Grimm. "No one was ever around to hear it. I thought of it whenever these little guys pulled dust to themselves. It made sense."

"If that's what you went with, then I'm not going to change your mind."

Jaune created two more in his hands, except his current control only allowed for three to be out and about at a time. There, they collapsed right into his palms, condensing his hands into a shade of darkness with which he made a hand-to-hand pose with.

"Trap, Black Hole!"

Ren paused, wondering. "Why not binary?" Jaune blinked, lost at the definition. "It means two of a kind. Like your Twin Supernovas. It doesn't make logical sense to give a name meant for one, to two objects. This way if you use only one Black Hole, it's still called Black Hole."

Jaune rubbed his chin, liking the name. "Binary Black Hole? It does make naming it all the simpler. No more confusion!"

Ren stared at the mass of darkness around Jaune's hands, seeing a definite image of a certain brawler they all knew. "You know, I'm just now noticing closely your Binary Black Hole look like Yang's fighting gloves."

"Ya, think?" The ninja nodded and Jaune sighed before racing at Ren with a fist cocked back in a familiar Yang pose. "Really wish I knew how to use Dark Matter."

Ren dodged the fist, ducking underneath his strike to deliver a timed kick to Jaune's stomach, only for him to catch his foot with his Lore infused hand. "I'm sure you'll figure it out eventually."

Jaune held Ren's foot tightly, binding his time as the three Gravities closed in on Ren's stationary position. He aimed all three by using his Black Hole covered hand, increasing their trajectory and speed to collide with Ren's chest while also shooting a fist forward at Ren's nose. It really did remind the Lie of Yang's gloves

Eyes widening a bit, he lunged back by using his other foot to kick himself free, narrowly avoiding the three Gravities and fist to the nose. One attack from Gravity he could easily deal with, knowing his cloak would prevent it from stealing any Aura, but three together wasn't a power he wanted to trifle with. Ren's doubly glad Jaune's Black Hole couldn't immobilize his Aura, but the Lie wasn't so sure what a Binary Black Hole was capable of.

He preferred not to find out.

Ren dodged to the side when Jaune willed the sphere at his direction, and he kicked each one of Gravities away, aiming one for his leader, calm the entire time. Even if they couldn't drain away his Aura, those balls were as condensed as solid stone. They still hurt when driven with enough driving force. And so far they proved to be indestructible. The Lie still remembered the time The Sloth King bashed one away so easily that it broke through a tree.

Ducking underneath his incoming Gravity, Jaune widened his eyes when Ren threw a punch to his chest. Determined, he trapped Ren's fist in his Black Hole covered palm, quickly spotting the difference in forces. He noticed now _and_ when Ren had attempted to kick him. Both proved to be oddities, mismatching power that didn't quite add up to Ren's current generated Outer Space. His kicks were heavy, and his punches weighed as much as a sandbag. Yet, he was light and surprisingly nimble on his feet.

All of this kind of reminded him of The Sloth King's strength and speed.

Glaring down at Ren's trapped fist, he weighed in with critical eyes. "I think the cloak's doing something to your movements? They're far much heavier than they should be; you're much lighter when it's convenient. It guess it kind of makes sense with Lore's power of gravity and whatnot."

That logic added up to Ren. He knew the cloak upped more than just his Aura control. "You have any idea how it works?"

"Not a clue. It must be the cloak's doing." Jaune could see Ren's Lore fight against his Black Hole. But could it stall two? "Using gravity to increase power and lessen falling damage? Genius! Why didn't I think of that?"

Throwing a fist forward, it was Ren's turn to trap Jaune's fist with his hand, trapping them in a stalemate, or so he thought. One Black Hole was his cloak's limit because Ren could feel his Aura being decompressed in a strong gravitational force by two. He wasn't entirely helpless, the cloak did guard against a generous amount of Lore, but it was definitely a losing battle if he stayed locked in with his leader. Not to mention the three Gravities were quickly closing in on their locked positions. And the Lie knew without a doubt that'd be bad on his Aura.

Releasing Jaune's hand, but not before leaving behind a nice trace amount of bad luck, Ren retracted StormFlower from his freed combat sleeve and aimed at Jaune's chest, causing his leader to retreat. The ninja wasn't allowed to properly aim, forced to dodge three different Gravities from three different directions. Two he successfully avoided, bending back, but one of them managed to hit his palm and knock his weapon away. Then before he can even process what's happening, all three Gravities hovered over StormFlower and lifted it from off the ground, floating it toward Jaune and his awaiting hand.

Glaring, Ren took cover behind a tree. "Now that's just not fair."

"What's the point in taking cover?"

Ren didn't understand what Jaune meant until he's forced to avoid the three Gravities coming from his left-side. By rolling out of their way, he's met with a hailstorm of bullets that slowly started chipping away at his defenses and Aura, before rolling back for cover. But he knew hiding wouldn't prove beneficial. As long as Jaune knew or sensed his Outer Space, he could just send the Gravities to fetch him out. But there had to be a limit to their distance. Ren knew they had one. The prank on Ruby and Yang proved there to be one.

Peeking behind the tree, he narrowed his eyes at the way Jaune had Black Hole extended out. Clearly, his leader was controlling the Gravities with the aid of his Lore infused hand, increasing their overall speed and driving momentum. He guided their movements from afar where he was safe from harm, like strings attached to puppets.

Binding his time, Ren took a deep breath and avoided the next array of Gravities, charging at Jaune in a mad rush. No point in hiding, not while those things were hot on his trail.

He lunged forward and aimed a roundhouse kick for his leader's head, intent to bring the fight to Jaune. His Fearless Leader took aim and tried to open fire, but found StormFlower jammed. And when he finally figured it out, he grinned and brought up his forearm to block Ren's roundhouse kick, undeterred from the powerhouse force.

"You really are a sneaky ninja."

Grabbing Ren's foot with his other arm, Jaune tossed the Lie across the battlefield, throwing the useless weapon to the ground. He bunched his fist together, armed and ready, and dashed forward. Those few weeks of only fighting hand-to-hand really painted the picture of a fighter, and Jaune kind of enjoyed fighting with his bare hands. It really got the blood flowing.

Now he could see why Yang enjoyed fighting like this.

Taking a page out of Ren's book, Jaune surrounded his arm with the Gravities on a theory and brought his fist down, amplified by an intense gravity he was only now learning to monopolize. The control was severely lacking—nothing he found odd for his first time trying—but he certainly felt a gravitational pressure surround his entire arm.

Instincts on high alert, Ren barely rolled out of the way, attention centered on the rupture forest floor. There was a sizable crater left behind from Jaune's strike, breaking the earth beneath his knuckles. From the cloud of dust, the three orbs of Lore float out, pulling pebbles and dust within their personal gravitational pulls. They move painfully slow, acting without a will of their own, nor Jaune's. Still, they remained close to him, acting as a second pair of invisible eyes for the Arc.

Pulling his hand from out the bedrock, Jaune sighed, regretting the way his hand stung tenderly. He needed to be extra careful, compared to his Aura control, his Lore paled in comparison and the dark power didn't heal injuries. The power protecting him wasn't as kind. So he needed to better coordinate his movements. Any wasted power couldn't be forgiven.

This controlling gravity power wasn't terribly easy. Ren had it lucky, wearing a cloak that apparently automatically fixed the control between heavy and light at the flip of a coin. He was forced to improvise and learn along the way.

At least the spar revealed a thing or two. Lore was turning out to be a close-quarter power, throwing away destructive power for trapping and protection. He didn't know why it felt like that, but it just did. Even Gravity acted as nothing more than a nuisance that imprisoned his target in an inescapable lock that forced the fight well within their personal boundaries.

Aura didn't do that.

Tired of thinking, Jaune swiped the remaining dust out the way, willing all three Gravities to move. His friend waited for him to send them out, but he held them back, attaching them to his personal space instead. He had no intention of sending them out again, better to conserve Lore and amplify his gravity when needed. Controlling the influx of gravitational power between strikes may prove to be incredibly difficult, but he would somehow manage feasible results.

Mastery required time. There would be time to practice later. And trying to land a clean strike on Mr. Nimble and Quick was a mission all on its own. Damn ninjas and their slippery moves.

Patience thinning, Ren dashed over to Jaune, arms thrown back in order to hide his fingers as he attempted another hand-sign. But it failed. The backlash hurt his fingers, numbing them to a pain not even Aura could reverse.

Angry, he threw a fist forward, glaring when Jaune not only dodged it, but redirected his line of attack to a tree. Reasonably enough, he expected to hurt his knuckles on the tree bark, maybe break some skin, but his hand partially shattered the tree's infrastructure in a mighty blow.

Surprised by his power, the Lie sidestepped Jaune's retaliation punch, using his palm to push the fist away from his face before back-flipping a few meters back. Along the way, he managed to pick up StormFlower and hide it back within his combat sleeve.

Distance gained, Ren narrowed his eyes at the ruptured tree. The mass of power he unleashed concerned him. That was how strong his kicks and punches were? And his leader still managed to not only block each strike, but counter or parry? Advanced Aura and Lore control narrowed the gap that much? And his Grimm cloak enhanced his control to such a degree?

Grabbing the sleeve of his cloak, Ren hummed in appreciation, unaware of any pain. "Amazing."

"It's fun to learn, isn't it?"

The ninja answered by charging at his leader. Like a symphony, they danced around to the beats of their individual strength. Heavy punches and kicks were thrown around. Neither could get a clear upper hand on the other. Both felt themselves held back by an invisible force that was only becoming more noticeable the longer they fought. Limits were being reached. And it burned their souls to find themselves stuck at that wall.

Lore's negative emotional properties certainly weren't helping.

Jumping back, Jaune recalled his Gravities to center back at him and felt a bit of Outer Space from over his shoulder. A lone Beowolf had crawled up on him, fascinated by the human with darkness attached to his soul. And for a moment, the Grimm didn't fear the Arc, but then the human growled at the beast and it sunk back into the forest.

Being fueled by Lore's properties, Ren moved with his Lore cloak, weakening the gravitational forces around him. Mixed with a great speed, he aimed a high-kick for Jaune's neck, only for his leader to step back and avoid the kick entirely. So Ren quickly fixed his position and aimed a fist for Jaune's nose.

His leader caught it and he captured his leader's counter-fist.

Stuck in another stalemate, Ren sighed after accounting for the scene between Jaune and the Beowolf. "That's the one thing I don't understand about you. How can you fight with a power you have no trust in?"

Jaune broke off the stalemate. "What are you talking about?"

Gazing over to the young Beowolf, Ren frowned. "I notice the way you look at Sir Scrabbles. It's been obvious to everyone but Nora. You don't really like that Grimm. You never have. Yet you fight with the same power and expect results. Why?"

"And what does liking that Grimm have to do with Lore?"

"It's not about liking Sir Scrabbles, it's the principle. I'm just speculating, but have you ever considered that Lore doesn't want you to have any more power because you don't trust it? Have you ever thought of that?"

Jaune scoffed, cracking his neck. "That's dumb. Lore's a power, not a living force. How could it prevent me from using its powers to the fullest? That makes zero sense."

"Nothing you do makes sense, Jaune. You should know that better than anyone." His leader simply crossed his arms. "You've said it yourself, Lore has influence over emotions, the Grimm can feel and sense emotions, and maybe your Lore has its own. I say this because the more I wear this cloak and spend time with Sir Scrabbles, the more I can relate to them."

Jaune considered his words heavily. Ren did somewhat have a point. Lore did attribute to emotions. Could his distrust in the dark power really be his undoing? Personally, he didn't believe it, especially not with the biggest hypocrisy standing before him. Because Lore and Aura were still two sides of the same coin. And what went around and came around.

Getting fueled by Lore, Jaune moved up and poked Ren on the shoulder. "It's funny that you say that, because that means that this trust stuff works both ways."

The ninja poked Jaune right back. "And what do you mean by that?"

Grabbing some of the threading of the Lore cloak, Jaune pulled on it. "Just like how you've been paying attention to me, I've been keeping a close eye on you. And if that's the case, then you're just as guilty as I am." He let go of the threading. "Since the day you told me about your past, I've noticed that you did everything in your power to lock away your Aura like a prisoner, but you still battled alongside it. Even now this cloak's nothing more a jail cell to hold your Aura in. For all you know, maybe that's why you can't use those Lie techniques of yours. If those eyes of yours are powered by Aura, then it'd make sense for them not to work."

When Jaune's statement landed, neither of the two moved another muscle. Both their words had hit a sore spot since it attributed so heavily to their current circumstances. A gentle breeze fluttered by and ruffled up the tree leaves hanging above their heads, shaking up the earth-shattering theories. And the surrounding Grimm observed from behind trees and underneath bushes, enthralled by the two humans that fought with their shadows. They acted like two opposite sides of the spectrum with their ideals differed, but principles all the same.

Jaune was then the first to break, absorbing his Lore entirely in a fit of sadness. "Hey, uh, sorry, I didn't mean to say that. There's probably a different reason to why you can't use your family's techniques. I'm just being dumb."

Ren opened his collar and smiled with the same level of guilt. "No, I must apologize; I shouldn't have said anything to begin with. It was out of line and it ruined our training session. I'm sure you'll figure out how to master your Lore in no time."

Just like that, all the undesirable aspects of their negative emotions weren't fueled by their surrounding Lore anymore. Everything bad was gone and it left a pair of awkward teens in its wake. But if these two could survive Atlas, they could survive this.

Too bad it didn't make the situation any less awkward.

 _Beep_!

Jaune quickly reached into his pocket and pulled out his scroll in record time. His eyes couldn't move fast enough to read and he laughed gracelessly at the equally ill-placed ninja.

"Ah, would you look at that, looks like the mission's done. Professor Goodwitch just messaged me. She wants up to meet up at the entrance of the village for the Bullhead. We better hurry up then."

Time cut short, Ren waved his hand and began walking in a different direction. He had one more matter of business to take care of. And with his time abruptly skewed, now was the only time to confront the issue before he forever lost the opportunity.

"You go find Pyrrha and Nora; I'll meet you guys there. There's just one person I have to meet before we leave."

Jaune would ask who, but the atmosphere was still too awkward for him and graciously accepted the out.

...

When Shiragiku exited the building used to hold the council meetings, he wasn't surprised to find Lie Ren waiting outside the door with his eyes enthralled in a nonchalant manner. He figured this was coming up after Glynda Goodwitch announced that the mission had been completed an hour prior. Shiragiku was simply wondering what took the Lie so long to arrive.

"So you're leaving now, eh?"

Ren held out his hand and motioned Shiragiku to move closer. And when the old man did, he swiftly delivered a powerful jab to his stomach, causing the old-timer to stumble a few steps back. Funny enough, Shiragiku smirked with the pain and waggled his finger at the indifferent Lie. But Ren failed to find any humor.

"To be fair, you had that coming."

Shiragiku wheezed and reached into his pocket. Out he pulled a tiny item wrapped around a timeworn cloth. "You're just like your father, you know that. Well, don't go just yet, there's something I have for you. Just went to retrieve it for you. It's been collecting dust for years now."

Hidden beneath the cloth was a small knife. Simple in design, the handle was brown and the blade curved and extended out midway. The knife barely resembled anything remotely intricate and had nothing going for it in the terms of uniqueness. It really was just some random knife.

And Shiragiku was gifting this to him?

"A knife?"

The old man quickly saw through Ren's confusion and smirked. "Don't let its appearance fool you, boy, this aint no ordinary knife. I know it doesn't look much, but this one here belonged to your mother. And I think it's about time for it to belong in your hands."

Shiragiku personally enjoyed the way Ren's façade shattered. Suddenly the knife no longer appeared dull or worthless. Whatever uninteresting features it possessed no longer matter to Ren, and he gratefully accepted the gift with a humbleness he never knew he had.

"Thank you."

"Ah, don't worry about. I don't deserve your thanks. You should've been given this a long time ago. We should've had that _talk_ a long time ago."

Gripping the knife tightly, Ren allowed the edges to cut into his skin. "It's my fault we ran away."

The old man roughly shoved him on the shoulder, stopping him from cutting anymore into his skin. "Yea, but you and that lightning bug were just youngsters at the time. We were the adults. We should've been watching after you. Especially after what your clans did to protect this town."

Both of them knew they could go in endless circles about this, so neither added anything beyond that. With a simple nod, he pocketed away the family heirloom and shoved Shiragiku on his shoulder. A tiny smirk presented itself and Ren walked past the old man, never once looking back at his home, but he did exit with a simple wave over his shoulder.

"Take care of yourself."

...

At the entrance of Kurochō, all of Team JNPR's packed and ready to depart back to Beacon. The only one not presented was Glynda Goodwitch. Good, too, because Nora's stuffing Sir Scrabbles into Ren's outfit at the last possible minute since the Lie had taken his sweet time getting back from wherever he ventured off to. And did he look sorry at all?

Nope.

Arriving that last minutes later, Glynda returned with her travel bag and greeted her fellow students. "Sorry that so long, I had to collect our payment. Is everyone here? Good! Let's return back."

Like magic, the Bullhead appeared from over the horizon and landed right before them. None dared to comment about what just happened. And the professor entered first with the rest of the team following. She waltzed right into the very back of the airship, busy messing with her scroll. For various reasons, the rest of Team JNPR split into pairs and sat apart.

The following hour long ride back to Beacon carried a tense atmosphere with it. Surrounding silence wasn't a usual follower when it came to Team JNPR, but this rare blue moon had left everyone stuck in their own little world. Only Nora gushed and acted like her usual optimistic self, snuggling up to Ren throughout the whole ride with Sir Scrabbles hiding easily within the Lore cloak. Ren had an arm around her, loving the way she fit into his personal space like a key to a lock. Her loving embrace almost settled the brewing storm in his mind, but nothing could wash away what his leader had said.

Was it true? Did he treat his Aura like a prisoner? Was his Lore cloak—this gift—nothing more than a jail cell meant to trap, control, and force his Aura to be obey his laws. Based on what Ren had read in The Constellations, Aura was nothing like Lore. It moved fast and burned brighter than any star. Power like that probably wasn't meant to be locked away in a cage. Heat needed life to be sustained. Lore didn't need that. It was the cold and numbing power that preferred the darkness and absolute control. Just ask his Fearless Leader. Jaune _still_ didn't have unconditional control over Lore.

Had this Lie been blinded by his own fibs? Had he come to believe in the fantasies he setup for himself all over again? Did the truth still blind him now?

Couldn't be!

"Ren?" He looked down at the queen who called upon him. "What's wrong?"

Suddenly, none of those conflicting issues mattered anymore, because the answer was staring up at him with worry. She must've been staring for quite a while because her smile was nowhere to be found and she had pressed her body closer to his in an effort to calm his beating heart.

The Lie soon found himself smiling foolishly all over again.

How could he forget already? Of course some parts of him were blinded by the truth. Old habits die hard, after all. No one was safe from that. Not Jaune and his tendency to lie to protect his friends, nor Pyrrha and her contradictory motives to shield her friend's from issues eating away at her. Not even himself and his ability to see himself the monster hiding in disguise. For Monty's sake, he was wearing a cloak made out of Grimm fur. _No one_ just walked away from old habits without a few lingering onto their shadows for a tad longer.

Leaning down, he rested his forehead on Nora's. His truth was right here and right now. He just hadn't completely looked past the lie yet. This doubtlessly included other aspects of his life, Aura included. But time healed all wounds. Ren only needed more time to let what his leader had said to sink in.

"Nothing, Nora, just busy thinking."

"Well, stop thinking. I want cuddles."

Probably the best advice he ever heard.

...

A few rows ahead of the lovebirds, the other half of Team JNPR were lost in their own thoughts. Pyrrha with her future Maiden problems and Jaune with what Ren had said about trust. The two barely even looked at each, taking the comfortable silence with reverence. But Lady Luck wasn't done with Jaune yet, and soon a messaged _beeped_ from Pyrrha's scroll, stopping the partner's internal struggle to focus on the _beeping_.

"You might want to get that, Pyrrha? It could be Unlucky Gems asking if you could do a cover shot for their next cereal box."

Smiling at his lame joke, she made sure to hit him extra hard in the shoulder before opening the message. Her smile almost dropped upon reading the message's recipient, Headmaster Ozpin.

 _Glynda Goodwitch has informed me of your decision. You know where to go. Glynda will follow you once you land._

"Hey, Pyrrha? Everything alright?"

Blinking in a panic, she hastily closed the message and gave her partner her best tournament winning smile. Jaune saw right through her mask. That smile exactly resembled her _I'm Sorry_ smile. He should know. He had only seen it during their nightly training sessions, the ones that made him want to redirect his focus somewhere and discover the intricate secrets of Aura.

Yea, that one.

"Everything's fine, Jaune. Headmaster Ozpin just wants to meet me up to discuss a few things about my future classes."

Taking her silence into account, he ignored the obvious lie, knowing once the _I'm Sorry_ smile was up to only take some of her words to truth. He wanted to pry. Nothing more would supply him greater comfort than helping Pyrrha past the issue that had been plaguing her the past few days. Instead he held his tongue and accepted the answer. If this went on for more than a few days, then he was going to stick his foot down and figure out what's going on.

But for now he would leave her with solace. "You know... you could tell me if something's up."

This time she switched to her _Hello Again_ smile. "I know..."

Knowing he wouldn't get anything else out of her, unless he deliberately called her out on it, he reached into his pocket and began the slow process of adding Lore to the shard in his pocket. After their little spar, Jaune's interested in pushing his limits of control to the fullest, starting with adding more Lore to this Dust shard. No more breaks in-between.

Truth be told, he loathed what Ren had hypothesized about his lack of control. And not because it sounded strange and improbable, that meant purely nothing compared to what was written in The Constellations, but because it challenged his personal views on the Grimm as a complete whole.

As a manipulator of Lore and Aura, the Fearless Leader was anything but simple and close-minded. He knew fairly well where the power of Aura and Lore came from—and where they differed. Their source of powers fascinated him to no end, but a past quote of Ren's still hit hard in his soul.

 _Because if I'm right... then that means the Grimm have souls_

That and Ren's claim back in the forest had jumbled up his thoughts in more ways than one. His friend hit the mark when he pointed out Jaune's reluctance with Sir Scrabbles. Since day one he failed to feel entirely comfortable with the sloth around, even if he could effortlessly obliterate the little guy with a blast of Supernova anytime he so desired. But the tiny Grimm wasn't the problem.

Lore's entirety just rubbed him the wrong way. When he learned of the power's origins, ideals shifted and opinions changed dramatically. And only Nora's unconditional love kept him from kicking the Grimm out. Well, that and Ren had slowly grown more attached to it. A byproduct of being around cute animals. Given enough time and he was more than sure Pyrrha would be giving the little guy baths while she moaned about her day.

So no, he didn't trust the Grimm, not one bit. How could he? Jaune's sole purpose for forging his way into Beacon was a blind testament to that. And to be asked to toss that aside like yesterday's new was beyond difficult. Which was why he saw no correlation with trusting the Grimm and his abyssal control over Lore. The two couldn't possibly correlate in such a way. Lore's a power source, not a person. And even if they somehow, _possibly_ correlated, his next question was _why_.

Why would that be a deciding factor? It wasn't like Jaune feared the power of Lore. He only distrusted the origins, not the power itself.

Closing his eyes, he leaned back into his chair and simply breathed.

Why was this so hard? Why couldn't he grasp the power that remained hidden within his soul? Why? Why was it just out of reach? What reason could their conceivably be to halt him at every damn turn? It made absolutely no sense!

 _Attention students, we will be landing soon. I repeat. We will be landing soon._

Frustrated, the Arc counted a few specs floating in the air, glad that _they_ never changed. At least he could count on some things being there for him and making sense.

Playing with the Lore shard in pocket, he slowly glared when he noticed some of Pyrrha's Aura suddenly flare up. Jaune was more than sure it possibly had to do with her emotions, unless he wasn't seeing some killer monster hiding in one of the nearby seats. Aura just worked like that. Like Semblances and Lore's ability to affect negative emotions. They were all tied to emotions in some shape or form. Now the question was why Pyrrha emotions were acting all wonky. He hadn't said anything to her for most the ride, half due to Professor Goodwitch sitting a few rows back, but more cause the spar between the duo had taken more out of him than he thought. And suddenly she's nervous when they were so close to home?

Something wasn't adding up.

He remained quiet when they landed. He even bit his tongue when Pyrrha's Aura flared a second time. It was like she was doing it on purpose, to alert him without saying a single word or giving off any inclination to her goals. Then his mussing was cut short when Professor Goodwitch walked up to Pyrrha and led her away from their team.

Narrowing his eyes, Jaune switched over to his Aura and felt the force of pressure budding down upon from Space. The Aura's power was gradual, non-violent, and acted upon being willed. No one noticed but him. And he was starting to wonder if Pyrrha was acting more vocal than he first thought. But he couldn't follow her and simply ask. Not while Professor Goodwitch accompanied her to Ozpin's office.

For now he would casually wait to approach the subject.

Throwing his head back, he found the couple walking down the Bullhead with Ren's hand wrapped around Nora's waist. Guy looked like he was on cloud nine. There was a pun about rainclouds in there somewhere.

The Arc raised a brow when Nora whispered something into Ren's ear. Acting all hush-hush and guilty. And a moment later the Lie was strolling up to his leader, appearing the tiniest bit sheepish. However, that all came to a frightening stop when he took one serious glance at Jaune's calm façade.

"Did something happen?"

Jaune kept his expressions blank. "I don't know yet, maybe. I need to see what's wrong with Pyrrha? Something's majorly bugging her bad."

"Why? I thought you were fine waiting for her to come to you when she was ready? And now you're changing your mind."

He huffed and looked over his shoulder. "That was before I felt her Aura flare up. Whatever is messing with my partner, it has her on edge. And I think she's trying to tell me something, I just don't know what." Jaune slowly breathed. "I'll confront her after she comes back from her meeting with Ozpin. To be honest, maybe I should've done this earlier."

"We all make mistakes. I'm sure everything will work out." Taking Jaune's silence as a good sign, he not so discreetly elbowed Jaune in the ribs. "Hey, Nora and I are going to walk around for a bit."

The Arc blinked innocently, hiding back a grin. "What? Is that code for going to make-out?"

He hadn't meant to say that so loud, but the thought of them doing _that_ kind of made him forget proper etiquette and blurt out the first thing that came to mind. Or maybe Jaune wanted to purposely embarrass Nora for all it was worth. It wasn't like Mr. Public Display of Affection got embarrassed. And none of them could prove a damn thing, anyways.

She acted out just like he hoped—with a blush mixed with embarrassed fury—and had her arms screwed to her sides. She stormed up to her leader, looking like a fiery tomato waiting to burst. Holding back a laugh proved to be more challenging than learning to forge Excalibur. Ren, at the very least, managed to keep a straight.

"What? No! That's not it! Why would you think such a dumb thought, Jaune-Jaune?" Ren smirked and kissed her on the cheek. She was instantly pushing him back. "Stop it, Renny! Not in front of our Dumb Leader!"

He stole another surprise kiss to the lips. "Love-love you, too!"

"Gah!"

They watched her storm off for Emerald Forest, clearly flustered from all the affection. Ren felt no guilt whatsoever and shot Jaune a small smile. Just wait until Team RWBY found out. The teasing from them was going to be merciless.

The Arc scoffed seconds later with a teasing grin. "Gosh, I never thought she'd be the embarrassed-type. I always pictured Nora more open about your relationship. I guess she gets embarrassed easily. Who would've thought?"

Ren's smile stretched a bit wider. "I love that about her."

"You're so whipped..." Jaune shrugged his shoulders and sighed. "So? What now?"

"Now..." he opened his cloak and handed Sir Scrabbles over to Jaune. His leader took the Grimm with silent caution. "Now I'm off to spend time with Nora. Here, could you take Sir Scrabbles with you back to the dorm? He's been fidgeting since the flight. I guess he doesn't enjoy traveling through the air."

They both knew what Ren was doing, but his friend trusted him enough for such a task, so Jaune wouldn't fail. Didn't mean he had to like it. Even if Sir Scrabbles was Nora's precious baby, it was still a Grimm with moderately sharp claws and blood colored eyes. Lines were drawn somewhere in the sand.

His Fearless Leader held up the Grimm and frowned. "I guess we both don't like Bullheads, huh? But sure, I'll take him back." Jaune fixed the sloth to the back of his hoodie and tensed when its arms wrapped around his neck. He waved Ren off with that teasing grin of his. "Now go find your _girlfriend_ before she ends up breaking something. We're on Professor Goodwitch's good side, I want to stay there."

The ninja rolled his eyes and left without humoring him. Jaune probably would've found that rude, maybe even tease Ren a bit on being in such a hurry to find Nora, but he just wanted to reach his bed and lay down for a bit before venturing out to find Pyrrha. Not to mention the faster he moved, the quicker he could remove Sir Scrabbles off his neck. It felt odd to have the little guy so close to his person without either of the parents around. Interacting with Grimm with Lore was one thing, having one wrapped around his neck was another. This was the first time the tiny guy had ever invaded his person.

It frustrated him.

The feeling was mutual with the way Sir Scrabbles remained perfectly still around his neck, most likely feeling the negative emotions attributed to Jaune Arc from such a close proximity. And if the tiny Grimm had learned anything about the four humans it bunked with, it was to _not_ trifle with the pack leader, not while the King's Subject and Future Lady were away. Sure, the alpha male had the foolish appearance, harmless smile and whimsical charm that all fools had, but Sir Scrabbles meticulously knew not to misjudge a fool.

All it took was one fool to collapse an entire monarchy.

"C'mon, Sir Scrabbles, let's head back to the dorm. I have a feeling Nora and Ren are going to be gone a while. And I still need to talk to Pyrrha. Man, what a day."

Sir Scrabbles braved a small sound. Jaune didn't react to it and wandered back to their dorm, mood clipped and movements stiff. People passing by hardly paid him a glance, a blessing in disguise. The duo weren't fortunate enough to have access to Ren's garbs, a perfect disguise for hiding the tiny Grimm. Any student worth their Dust would easily be able to see the bump from the back of his hoodie and have the power to gossip. And none of Team JNPR needed that. Not with the Vytal Tournament less than two weeks away.

Avoiding everyone like the Aura Plague, they reached their hallway, practically in the clear. As soon as Jaune grabbed the handle to his team's door, Team RWBY's door burst open to reveal a livid Blake. Her teeth were bare and the amber in her eyes glowed with fury. She wasn't directing her anger toward him—actually calming down a bit the moment she saw him—but the yelling coming from inside their dorm revealed the person she most likely had a fight with. And his friend stomped away before anything could be said.

Yang ran out a second later. "Blake! Get back here!"

Sensing impending doom—and knowing his luck better than anyone—Jaune calmly breathed in and looked away. Maybe if he turned the handle right now, he'd be able to avoid any female's wrath. But no, Fate, like Karma and Lady Luck, had better plans for their favorite chewtoy.

"And where have you been all this time? You walked out of our deal. I hope you have a good excuse."

Jaune flinched from the accusing tone Weiss had adopted. A quick turn revealed her leaning on the framework with her arms crossed, frown deep, and eyes cold. Somewhere in the background he could see Ruby cleaning up an inferno of a mess in their room. That was before Weiss shut the door and cleared her throat.

To be perfectly fair, he figured this talk would've happened sooner or later the very morning Team JNPR departed for their mission. He just didn't expect it to be so soon after returning. The Arc hadn't prepared any planned speech whatsoever. And Weiss had every reason to be two-shades angry.

He still tried to play it off with an awkward laugh.

"Oh, hey, Weiss, fancy meeting you here. How's it going?" Her nose scrunched up. "Look, just let me explain, long story short, early mission, Professor Goodwitch's idea, just got back. It had to do with preparing for the Vytal Tournament. There was nothing I could do about it. I didn't even know about it until Sunday night."

Weiss appeared to think it over. He silently prayed for his shin's well-being. Then the Heiress _huffed_ and removed herself from the wall to stand directly in front of him. She somehow she made-up for the height difference with the way she glared.

"That would explain why Combat Class has been cancelled for the past three days. But I'm confused, why was only your team sent out early? Why not ours?"

Jaune smirked. "Because Professor Goodwitch thinks we rock."

She scoffed at his ludicrous claim. "I hardly believe that's the reason."

"Believe what you want, but now my team doesn't have to worry about the mission next week. And we're going to win the Vytal Tournament. So there's that."

Weiss promptly had her tongue ready with a variety of snappy comebacks, but Yang returned and soured the mood almost instantly. She ferociously moved past the two and slammed the door shut to Team RWBY's room. Vibrations shook the hall and their feet, and the Arc winced at the cracks forming on the shingles. Weiss, for the better part, hardly flinched from the outburst. Things such as anger delegated a great part of her life prior to Beacon.

This was no different.

Feeling Sir Scrabbles shake from the unrestrained fury, Jaune backed away from their door. "Uh? Do I even want to ask what happened between Yang and Blake?"

Her cold demeanor melted at the mention of Blake's name. Slouching shoulders soon followed after with a tired sigh. "It's not Yang, only Blake. She's been going through some personal stuff... ever since we returned from Vale last Friday. And she won't talk to us." Weiss _hummed_ in place and crossed her arms thoughtfully. "Perhaps you could talk to her?"

Jaune looked around the hallway and found no one else. When it was apparent she was referring to him, he made sure to point to himself. "Who? Me? You want me to talk to Blake?"

"We've tried everything." He doubted that, but wisely kept his mouth shut. "She won't talk to us. But she enjoys your company. Maybe you could get her to open up."

It sounded like a bad idea because it was one. The blond had learned a few things about dealing with angry females from his seven sisters and occasionally distraught mother. Talking to an angry woman could only be done by another female. When it came to problems, women just spoke a different language. Men didn't understand. His father, grandfather, and he had wisely stayed away from all ill-confrontations with an angry woman, Arc or not.

And now Weiss was asking him to put his head in the lion's jaws.

Jaune preferred breathing. "Can't we just wait for her to cool down? You know, give her some space?"

She flicked her hair. "We're past that point. Blake's been like that for almost three days now. She won't talk to us. She hardly eats or sleeps. It's unhealthy. And Yang's been going crazy with trying to talk to her. So that's why I'm requesting you go beat some sense into her."

Stuck in a hard place, Jaune preferred not to get sucked into whatever melodrama was happening between Yang and Blake. The lack of progress with Lore was eating away at him. He was tired from his brawl with Ren. Muscles were sore and Sir Scrabbles's claws were starting to pinch his neck. They had just gotten back from a mission and long Bullhead ride. He needed to worry about the Vytal Tournament. And on top of that, he had his _own_ partner problems to deal with. _This_ was not something he wished to tackle at the moment.

Sure. Blake was one of his closest friends, no doubt about it. And of course he'd normally jump at the chance to help his friends, but he _really_ wanted to go hunt down Pyrrha and see what was making her do her _I'm Sorry_ smile. Not track down and get webbed into more problems that he had zero part in.

"Can I do this later? I kinda have a thing—!"

"Hey!" Weiss poked. She somehow made the world shake with her tiny stature and tall voice. "You owe me three favors! And for the betterment of Team RWBY, I'm redeeming one as of now. Go talk to Blake!"

"But my plate's already full with my own team!"

She paused, allowing the sounds from Team RWBY's room to escalate. "You know, Ruby and Yang are still afraid of ghosts."

The word alone killed the sound in the hallway. Jaune had no choice but to glare at his Dust partner. "You're a cold person, Weiss."

"I'll be a blizzard if it helps my team. Now shoo! Go find Blake! Go on! And don't come back until Blake's acting like her usual mopey self." She shut the door with a guilty smile.

Alone in the hallway, the leader of Team JNPR sighed with a heavy heart. Things must be bad if Weiss was asking _him_ for help, a non-member of Team RWBY. And with Pyrrha hiding something, the world was spinning on its axis.

"When did I become everyone's guidance counselor?" he grumbled, knocking his head against his team's door. A minute later, he walked in and plopped Sir Scrabbles down onto Nora's bed. The Grimm stared wordlessly at him. "I apparently need to go do damage control. You stay here. Don't burn the room down."

The second the pack leader left the room, Sir Scrabbles crawled underneath Nora's bed and made itself comfy.

Life was good.

...

Jaune didn't have to search too hard to find his missing friend. Other than the Mess Hall and courtyard, and without the sanctuary of Team JNPR's room, Blake only had one foreseeable place to go.

The library.

She was sitting at a lone computer console, researching Oum knew what. A hard edge encompassed her normally stoic eyes. Each _click_ of the keyboard seemed to resonate across the library. And he saw the heavy bags hugging her eyes. Clearly, something was eating away at her. She never acted like this. Blake's normally in better control of her emotions.

Counting a few specs passing by his vision, Jaune mentally prepared himself for their confrontation, taking the longest leisure stroll he could muster. It didn't matter. By the time he made his way toward her, his tongue had decided to tie itself into several knots. He literally had no idea what to say to her. And sadly for him, she did.

"Go away."

The Arc frowned. Even her voice spoke of a lack of sleep. Now he saw why Weiss had pushed so hard for him to talk to Blake. Something massive was eating away at her. And if she wasn't reaching out to her own team for advice, then he'd have to be her anchor.

Grabbing a chair, he sat right next to her, ignoring her deep frown in an effort to meet her piercing eyes. A childish grin had spread across his face and he rested his cheek upon his palm, using the keyboard she was using as a pillow of sorts, completely blocking her fingers from typing anymore.

"We both know that's not going to happen."

 _Click_!

Her finger remained stuck on the spacebar—one of the few keys he failed to hide—eyes narrowed like an animal. She hated that he refused to move, or how he cared little for blocking the screen. But most of all, she hated that he left her alone for practically three days without telling her. Blake had desperately wanted the use of their room to vent and cool off. And, probably the biggest reason of them all, she had wished to talk to him.

Talking to Jaune was always an odd-experience, but one she cherished the more it happened. However, this subject wasn't something he could not help her with. No could help her in this struggle. Blake had only wanted someone who wouldn't force the subject whenever someone saw her. Like her team.

"I don't want to talk about it."

Jaune considered it for all about three seconds. "That's cool. We don't have to talk about whatever's bugging you. We can just hang out. How about my team's room? I know how much you hate being around a crowd."

Blake knew perfectly well that he was leading her to a trap, and was probably going to breach the subject anyways, but she had a hard time not giving off the barest of smiles. Still, she was more than adamant that he couldn't help her. Not to say she's not grateful for his concern, because she was, but she was alone in this mission.

"I appreciate the offer, but I'm content here. Now could you please get off the keyboard?"

He sweetened the pot, ignoring her demands. "Nora and Ren are off doing something else and Pyrrha's not there." Blake said nothing, but her finger relaxed a bit on the spacebar. "Sir Scrabbles is in our room."

"Well... maybe I could stop by for a little while."

She finally let go of the spacebar.

...

Jaune Arc watched Blake Belladonna hug Sir Scrabbles like a lifeline.

She petted and cooed at the little guy, chest pressed tightly to a tuff of black fur. The Grimm didn't appear to mind the gushing, already beyond spoiled by a certain pancake queen. Funny enough, he preferred it this way. Even if he had been blackmailed into this, Jaune still found Blake's company enjoyable. He honestly missed his friend. And upon seeing how ragged and exhausted she looked, he silently blamed himself for not being there for her.

Weiss said that Blake's stubbornness had been like this for days now, ever since Team RWBY had returned from their outing to Vale last Friday. And where had he been when his friend was hurting and needed comfort, trying to escape Atlas with the skin of their teeth. Some friend this Arc turned out to be.

Knowing Blake's perfectly fine acting like nothing was wrong from past experience; Jaune sighed and sat down across from her, palms rested on the edge of Nora's bed. She of course noticed immediately and tried to divert all her attention to the sloth, but the Fearless Leader of Team JNPR was having none of that now.

Bad friend or not, it was better late than never.

"So... I'm just going to ask. What's eating away at you?"

She hugged the Grimm firmer, voice very clipped. "Nothing."

Screw beating around the bush. "Look, Blake, I'll just cut straight to the point. Your team is worried about you. I'm worried about you. You don't look like you've slept or eaten much since the last time I've talked to you. What's wrong? You could talk to me. And if you can't, then at least talk to your team."

She glared and traced her fingers over Sir Scrabble's arms. "I can't talk to my team about this."

Jaune paused, seeing the sense of Déjà vu. That wasn't the first time an issue with her team had surfaced up. Surprisingly, she had been spoiling the Grimm when they last talked about their team. And at the end of their argument, Blake accepted her team for whom they were and went to talk to them about her issues. Things worked out. Plans had been made. And feelings were heard. But now it appeared she had relapsed and fallen back into old habits with running with her problems, instead of confronting them.

He needed to remind her why that never worked. "Didn't we already have this talk? Your team cares about you, you know that." He's the one who helped her seek out her team for advice in the first place. "Why are you shutting them out?"

She lowered her head, but her voice hardened. "It's not that. I know they care, I do, but they don't understand anything. What's driving me isn't something they or anybody else at Beacon understands. I can't drag them into my problems."

Jaune thought about it. A simple frown and tap to the lips made him consider her dilemma, after all, the Arc knew a thing or two about _not understanding_. Just look at him. Not exactly the picture-perfect Huntsmen Candidate of the Year. Very few, if any, truly related to his problems on a personal level. But maybe, just maybe, Blake might.

"Maybe I'd understand if you told me?"

"You won't."

His eyes narrowed. "Try me."

Blake narrowed her eyes right back, but allowed them to weaken when Jaune showed no cracks in his armor. He neither faltered nor looked away. He only wanted to see what she saw. Maybe if she told him, he would understand _why_ no one could help her and drop the subject.

"Fine, but don't say I didn't warn you." Blake huffed, standing up to look out their window. "When my team went out to Vale last week, we didn't go out for a team outing, we went out to spy on The White Fang. We learned that The White Fang was working with a well-known criminal named Roman Torchwick and wanted to get more information on their plans of attacks. That... plan... didn't go so well, but we managed to stop the Roman, that was before he escaped." She sighed tiredly. "I've been trying to find any leads to where possibly The White Fang could be at now, but all my searches have come up empty-handed."

Jaune blinked, absorbing the information with interest. Whatever he expected Blake to say, it wasn't anywhere close to that. Stopping the bad guys? Okay! He got that. He saw the heroism in it. Definitely sounded like something Ruby would drag her team to do, but he recalled the trip to Vale was all Blake's idea. Weiss had told him that some time ago.

"Okay... I kind of see why you've been on edge now. You want to stop The White Fang from doing any more harm. No problem." None of this made any sense. He made it clear by tilting his head. "But what I don't get it is why this matters to you so much? Why do you care about The White Fang so much that you're losing sleep over it? It's bad, it's a problem for sure, but to lose sleep over it? Why?"

Blake froze at the question.

The temperature in the room felt like it dropped below zero. The way Jaune was staring at her, like an enigma waiting to cracked, made her want to run away and hide. But she stayed. All the moments she had spent in this room, relating to his problems on many personal levels, made them more than just dog-haters. They're friends. Good friends. And she felt—no!

She _knew_ she could _trust_ the blond noodle.

Playing with Sir Scrabbles's fur, she exhaled and then put the little guy down. The Grimm felt her panicked emotions and both the stunned occupants watched her slowly reach up toward her bow. Hesitation spread across her face, and after a bit of lip-biting, she grabbed the bow and allowed her hands to remain there. Then, like a bandage, she ripped off her bow to reveal a pair of cat ears hiding underneath. And when she stared at Jaune, it was the first she had seen him look so speechless and out-of-place.

"Because I'm... I'm a Faunus."

Like a fish out of water, Jaune remained mute and confused. He didn't know how to react. Blake? A Faunus? Her of all people? And probably a feline. He could safely say he hadn't seen that one coming. At least now he saw why this all mattered to her on a personal level. The White Fang's true goal was equality between the Faunus and humans. Equality wasn't exactly a laughing matter. He clearly didn't see the punch line. People have fought and died for freedom. The war of the past was fought over such an issue to begin with.

"So you're a Faunus?" Jaune repeated. He's unsure how to react. "Whoa, my mind's kind of blown right now. I'm still trying to wrap my head around it."

That'd at least explained the whole fish cake fiasco.

Quietly, she dropped her bow and stared sadly at the floor. Her shoulders shook and her breath hitched. Her tone's so soft he almost missed it. "So now you know... do you hate me?"

Jaune stopped thinking to focus on her question.

Hate her?

Of all the things to ask, of all questions to follow-up on, and Blake had to ask that? She thought just because she hand an extra set of ears and was born slightly different than him, that he was going to shun her like other people would and hate her for it. Did his friend really see herself in such a horrible light? Was the fear gnawing at her possibly that strong? If so, then Jaune answered the only way he knew how.

By laughing like a madman.

Blake _gasped_ at the way he laughed. She anticipated a variety of reactions. She had lived through her fair share of them. But a laugh? A laugh was not one she had experienced before. Maybe if the laughing had proved taunting, she could chalk it up to mocking her, but Jaune's voice lacked such an edge.

No.

The blond noodle of Team JNPR simply laughed at her question—like it was the dumbest question in the entire world. It made her feel childish. It forced her to look away in embarrassment. But most of all, it made her soul sing and Aura warm. Because when he finished laughing his heart out, there wasn't a single trace of hatred anywhere in those clear blue sky eyes of his. Not even when he picked up her bow and smiled foolishly at the clever piece of clothing.

"Why would you ask something so dumb, Blake? I thought you were smarter than that." Jaune waved one hand in the air. "So you're a Faunus? Big Deal! Faunus or human, it doesn't matter to me. All I care about is the _person_ that you are. And you're Blake." He grinned and placed the bow down and grabbed her wrists. "So no, I don't hate you. I don't hate Blake Belladonna at all, Faunus or not. So please don't ever ask that question again."

Stuck in a loop, Blake found her voice missing. No sound would come out. And even if she could talk, she wouldn't know what to say. Her thoughts were a jumbled mess. So she did the only thing she could do, and that was look away and stubbornly refuse Jaune the opportunity to see her eyes water. And the Arc didn't need to see her face to know how happy she was. Her wiping away the imaginary dust from her eyes was more than enough for him.

"You're such an idiot."

His grin grew three sizes that day. "If being an idiot is what it takes to keep you happy, then I'm the biggest fool in Remnant." He grabbed her bow and pushed it into her shaking hands. "But what I do hate is seeing my friend beating herself over something she had no control over. So let's do a do-over. Hi, Blake, can you tell me what's wrong? I'm all ears."

She finally looked at him, eyes slightly red and grin impossible to miss. "Is that a jab at my ears?" He respectfully remained quiet. "Jerk."

Laughing now, Jaune sat down next to her and bumped her shoulder. "So even if you're a Faunus, I still don't get why you're so hung about The White Fang? You can't control what they do."

Blake lost her smile and frowned. Telling Jaune about her heritage was one thing, but telling him about her involvement with The White Fang might push her precious friend away. But every time she thought one thing about Mr. Tall, Blonde, and Scraggly, he surprised her with another gift that blew her mind. Maybe, if there really was a Monty Oum, he could relate to her not-so glamorous past and look past it with understanding.

The odds have proven favorably so far. Why not try just one more push?

She steeled her nerves and went all in. "I was... part of The White Fang. I used to be what the world sees as a terrorist. I'm just as responsible for the Dust robberies as any of them. And it scares me. Because I don't know when it's all going to catch up and bring everything crashing down."

This time Jaune didn't have the exact answer she needed. Learning about her heritage was a major shocker, but learning about her involvement with The White Fang, well, it was fortunate he's already sitting down. Because Blake had his tongue and mentally twisted it into a hundred different knots. Still, he needed to say something—anything!

"Blake—?"

"Do you know what's like being here at Beacon, being surrounded by wonderful friends, and knowing in the back of your head that you don't deserve any of it? That maybe someone more deserving should've taken your spot? Someone who didn't fight for a cause that did more harm than good?" she sniffed with a tired glare. "Do you even remotely understand any of that?"

With her whole reasoning on the table, Jaune's eyes widened before relaxing. Did he understand any of that? What was with Blake asking the dumbest questions in the world? Of course he understood where she was coming from. Because every day he woke up and thanked his _Lucky Stars_ for blessing him with his good fortune.

So when push came to shove, he didn't cower. Didn't hide or frowned. Jaune simply laughed and met Blake's heated stubbornness with understanding and compassion. Because, in all honesty, she probably understood him better than even his own team.

"Of course I do, my transcripts are fake, after all."

The Fearless Leader had never seen Blake's head whip around so fast, or her eyes widened in such a manner before. If he thought her tongue was tied before, then this required a whole new word. But she recovered quickly, narrowing her eyes into impossible slits with unrivaled fury.

"You're lying. You're just saying that to make me feel better. I don't like it when people lie to me to make me feel better."

"Then it's a good thing I'm not lying?" The blond shook his head with a quirky laugh to follow. "But nope! Not lying, sorry. I never took any test or went to some Combat School like everyone else. I forged my transcripts and got accepted into a school under false pretenses. So I'm not a terrorist, but I'm a liar and a cheat. I can't be trusted either. I don't deserve my friends. And I don't deserve to be here. So in the end we're both crooks." He bumped her shoulder a second time. "Guess we both have that in common, huh?"

Blake shook her head. "No. You're lying! You have to be! It can't be true." Jaune let his smile do all the talking. "You're not lying? Your transcripts really aren't real?"

"Yup! Totally fake! One-hundred and ten percent counterfeit. So..." he drawled. "Anymore life-changing secrets you have left to dish out, because I'm totally fresh out."

Emotions soon overcame the feline when Jaune's truth became apparent, and she quickly stood up, _tongue figuratively tied_. Both Sir Scrabbles and Jaune watched her move around his room in a panic. None of them thought to stop her. Kind of hard not to with the way she kept wiping her eyes clear of that damn imaginary dust again. But they saw the smile edged at the corner of her mouth. Blake was happy. She was damn near ecstatic. And it showed when she turned to surprise him with eyes sudden rejuvenated. She was still exhausted, obviously, but her foul mood turned to mush.

"What's next? You're going to tell me that Sir Scrabbles is a Grimm?"

The two in question spared a quick glance at each other before Jaune laughed awkwardly at the question. "Ha-ha... yea... That'd be crazy." Not exactly a lie and not exactly the truth. "So what's the deal then? Guilt's making you search for The White Fang? I guess I could see why you would think the rest of your team wouldn't understand why you're so passionate about it, but still, you should talk to them. I know they would want to help you anyway they can. I know you know that."

The Faunus had the decency to shuffle her feet on the floor. "I guess you're right, no, you _are_ right. I've been pushing them away when all they wanted to do was help. Even after they accepted my past and heritage. What a jerk I've been. I need to apologize." Blake moved to leave the room, but her foot tapped on a book hidden at the corner of Ren's bed.

She slowly picked it up and realized it was the book about Ragnarok she had left behind a while ago. By opening the book and reading over some of the lines, her smile turned into a frown. Jaune's quickly on her case, wondering why her mood suddenly turned sour.

"Hey, Blake, are you okay?"

Waving the book, she gripped the cover tightly. "You know, sometimes the more I think about it, the sadder it gets... I joined The White Fang because Faunus weren't being treated equally by humans. And now that I'm not in it anymore, I've only learned how wrong they're doing things. Not all humans act like that. Most are very accepting. It's the few bad eggs that paint everyone in a bad light."

That small spark of info interested Jaune. "If you learned all that _after_ leaving The White Fang, then why'd you leave in the first place? What changed your mind?"

"I lost trust in the organization. I didn't trust the direction they were going in. Didn't trust in their methods and reasons."

He could see what she meant. "So you left because you didn't believe in their goals anymore? I guess if you—!"

"No!" Blake interrupted with her tone firm. "I didn't say that. I said I didn't _trust_ the direction they were taking, not in their goals. I still highly believe in everything The White Fang are fighting for. That hasn't changed at all."

Now he was confused. "I don't know what you mean."

She huffed and opened a random passage from the book. It hardly mattered what page she landed on. The message was clear from the start.

"Do you have any idea how far a little bit of trust can go?" Jaune did. Who knew where he would be if he didn't have the trust of his team. "Trust alone can change the hearts of the people around you. It's what gives people a reason to keep fighting when the chips are down. It keeps people going and fighting for a cause they believe in. It's why I even joined The White Fang in the first place. I had believed in their methods to make people see the discrimination around them."

"Had?"

Her ears drooped. "Like I said, somewhere along the way I lost my trust in The White Fang. A new leader took over and peaceful protests soon turned into acts of violence. Very soon all we did was steal and hurt others to get our way. That wasn't what I signed up for. I couldn't see a future where strength alone could change the hearts of people. And I was scared with the way things were going. So I left." She laughed bitterly. "It's worse because the methods are actually producing results, but at what cost."

He still couldn't see the whole picture. "But if things are getting better for the Faunus, why can't you trust in them now? Why didn't you stay?"

"Violence only leads to more violence. What's the point in believing in a power that can do nothing but destroy and hurt?" Blake looked away, unable to wash away the memory of a certain man who helped shaped her life. "I left because there was no point in fighting together with an organization that's led by a man who believes in nothing but violence." She gripped the book so tightly her knuckles turned white. "Strength and determination alone can't change the way people feel. You can be a Fearless Leader all you want, but it takes trust to inspire hope and change the way people feel. That's the difference between a Fearless Leader and a _Great_ Leader!"

It made little sense to him, but Jaune had an inkling that Blake wasn't talking to him anymore. She had this faraway look and her voice was getting steadied louder by the word. Each sentence was filled with more primal passion than the last. Syllables got enunciated heatedly. All her words didn't sound like reasons, but issues she had with the current direction of The White Fang. And if he closed his eyes and listened closely, it sounded like she was arguing with herself.

Growing tired, she sat down and glared down at the book. "Sorry for rambling on, but what I'm trying to say is that The White Fang isn't what's wrong; it's the person in charge of that power. And with the way they're misusing it, they'll only end up doing more harm than good. It's kind of the like the dark power in this story."

Jaune perked up and moved to sit next to her. "How's that? Wasn't this story about this witch using the darkness as a form or power to drown the world in despair? Excuse me if I can't see the subtext."

She smirked at his naivety. Good to know kind-hearted people existed in this monster-infested world of theirs. "Just like darkness in the story, the world sees The White Fang as some dark storm cloud. But that's just wishful thinking, a misinterpretation on their part. Because even the light could be dangerous and the darkness could be comforting. The world's not so black-and-white."

He shrugged and poked holes in her ideology. "But most people are afraid of the dark. You can't blame them. The light makes it so much easier to see. The world kinda grew up like that."

She frowned at his answer. Clearly, Jaune still saw the world as black-and-white. "And that's the problem with most people. Everyone sees the light as the personification of good, but did you ever stop to think that maybe because it's _blinding_ you to the truth?" Jaune froze and Blake poked him. "I'm not saying all light does that, but I'm also not saying all darkness is scary." She shut the book closed. "It's so easy to live in the light. It takes real courage to walk into the darkness. Yet, the people in this story not only managed to do that and embrace the darkness for what it was... a misunderstood power that always gets the short end of the stick, but they learned to embrace, accept, and trust in it."

He still didn't completely see her point-of-view on the subject manner. "I kind of see where you're coming from, trust me, I do. But what do mean about accepting and trusting it? Aren't those two the same? If you embrace a power, then that probably means you trust it."

Blake regarded his question for all about a minute. This was a delicate question to answer. Wandering her eyes around the room, they found themselves locking onto Sir Scrabbles and its pitch-black fur. Without muttering a word, she got up and hugged the little guy tightly. The Grimm melted into her embrace.

"No, they're not the same. Like The White Fang, I accept and embrace their ideals, but I don't _trust_ in their methods. That's why I feared and then ran away from them. Just because you accept a power, doesn't mean you cannot fear it." She sighed with a terrible frown. "Fearing a power is the worst. It can cause people to be hesitant in fully embracing it. Acceptance isn't always enough, not when two powers fight together. Fighting together, but not trusting in each other, will only end up with each power destroying one another, and that's why I sometimes hate the world we live in. We take the darkness, our shadows, for granted."

Blake stood up and pressed Sir Scrabbles to Jaune's chest. This soft smile of hers melted all of his resolve. And before he could ask, she shushed him with a finger to his lip and turned the book over so he could see what she saw. It's a small passage written by a fictional character—a random record with a meaning long-forgotten in today's racist world.

 _Just like the light, the darkness has always been by a person from the very beginning and will stay with them till the very end. It's your shadow following you. And maybe when you were younger, your shadow would sometimes scare you, and that made it hard to trust it, but there were other times where it brought you joy and you would laugh and create stories with shadow puppets._

Blake then slowly closed the book and put her bow back on. "I know the world's not so open-minded like the one in this story, but I've learned to look past it and enjoy the beauty that does exist. And just because I trust in that storm cloud, doesn't mean I want good people to suffer. Who knows, it might turn around still and do some good one day."

That last line forced Jaune to think. If Blake still believed in the darkness after all this time, then that meant she still believed in the person in control to change their ways. She lacked trust in him, but accepted and embraced what he was fighting for. To have such loyalty when her whole heart wasn't into it? Well, not even Jaune regarded his Lore to such a degree. The same went for Ren and his Aura.

Thinking to himself, he grinned at the way Blake's bow twitched. "Thanks for the pep talk, Blake. You really changed my view on the world."

She playfully slapped his shoulder. "That's my line, dork. I should be thanking you for getting me out of my funk. If you hadn't dragged me away, I might've given up on The White Fang entirely. I was _this_ close to painting them as common criminals." She hugged the book to her chest and sighed softly. "Thanks for everything. I can't tell you how much I appreciate it now."

"I charge by the hour."

She smacked his shoulder again.

"Dummy." They laughed at the expense of his shoulder. "Just remember, you shouldn't ever abandon your shadow... because it wouldn't abandon you. I apparently forgot all about and tried to run away from my team. Now I see what an idiot I've been. I think it's time I go apologize."

"Yea, that sounds like a million dollar idea. You better hurry then, Yang's this close to going on a rampage."

Blake smirked and _booped_ Sir Scrabbles on the nose once. She settled book down on the bed before leaving the room. Jaune followed her example, feeling good about their little talk after relaying over the meaning behind the book, and put Sir Scrabbles down. A moment later, he heard a knocking on his door and figured it was Weiss coming to talk to him.

What he got when instead was the surprise of nine lifetimes.

Blake Belladonna had swooped in and sneaked-hugged the Arc in a crushing embrace. Her arms found themselves around his neck with her face buried into his chest. The action petrified him, but somehow his arms remembered to return the hug with an equally powerful squeeze. And he felt her smile upon his beating heart.

"If only more people like you were around... then The White Fang wouldn't need to exist."

...

 _Ding_!

Pyrrha Nikos stepped out the elevator with Professor Goodwitch in tow. She resembled a prisoner taking their final steps to their execution stand. Neither of the powerful women appeared happy to be back so soon. The cheerful elevator music that had been playing on the ride down certainly hadn't help. And Pyrrha failed to retain a proper smile throughout the whole ride down.

Mindfully, she hoped her leader had been using either Aura or Lore when she sent her signal. A last ditch effort on her part to inform her leader of her distress. Now the rest was up to him.

The walk to the machine was a longer one. Everyone Pyrrha had expected to be there was present with Penny tagging along, except for one new face she had never seen before. He was tall and rugged, she would even admit handsome and devilishly interesting, but he reeked of a foul-stench that burned her nose. Like a piece of meat, this red-eyed man stared at her with a refined laziness that most others would attribute to poor mannerism.

Pyrrha was nothing but impressed.

At any given moment, he could probably pin her down and disarm her. It would be over in a second. That was _if_ she allowed her guard to drop around him. But she knew better. Laziness barely attributed to strength or cunningness. Like Ren who was a lazy persona, or her Fearless Leader who appeared meek and uninterested in the daily qualms of Huntsmen issues. Even Nora's bubbly personality could _pop_ at any given moment and turn monstrous.

They were all dangerous in their own special way.

"Since you're just going to keep staring, I might as well introduce myself." A rugged and somewhat deep voice was what he sounded like. It suited him. "The name's Qrow Branwen, kid."

Pyrrha barely controlled her sharp _gasp_. A Branwen? Here? Of all places! One of the people Ren would probably attack without the slightest bit of hesitation? Someone related to the monsters that ruined her teammate's entire childhood? And he was standing right across from her, nonchalant attitude ever-present.

At least the red eyes resembled and meant something now.

She skillfully maintained herself and offered her hand _not_ in the form of a fist. "Pyrrha Nikos."

Qrow never took it. "Yea, yea, I know who you are. Eat your cereal all the time. Gotta say, good stuff. Could use more marshmallows, though. You should work on that."

Fighting the urge to narrow her eyes, Pyrrha ignored him and stared at the Headmaster. He coughed and extended one arm toward the scarecrow. "He's as much as part of this as Glynda and James. We're all here for the same reason. And he's come to watch the Aura transfer between you and Amber. Qrow was Amber's original bodyguard."

No one blamed Pyrrha for crossing her arms. "So what you're saying is he failed to protect Amber?"

She hated the way he smirked. "Oh, careful Ozpin, this one's got an attitude. And here I thought you were made of sugar, spice, and everything nice. Glad to know I was wrong. You're gonna need that temper."

Pyrrha frowned and glared at Amber's incubator. Qrow had failed to protect Amber. Without knowing a blasted thing about the man's fighting prowess, she knew he was powerful, trained instincts screamed it. So whoever attacked Amber and left her in this state was someone incredible powerful and cunning. After all, believing what Ren had revealed to her, Branwen's always had an ace or two up their sleeve. She was well-informed of their luckiness. And to be able to get past all that, more than just simple planning was needed.

Tracing her fingers on the glass, she sucked in a deep breath and gambled everything on her friends. "I have a few conditions. I'm certain Professor Goodwitch messaged you about them."

Ozpin remained silent for the longest minute, taking every precious second into account. Pyrrha saw his somewhat pained expression reflected on Amber's glass, but refused to break the silence. And after what felt like an eternity, her Headmaster moved next to her and stared into the same glass. He had no frown, only indifference scribbled across his face.

"She has and I have thought them over. I can accept your conditions, granted you must know that if something were to happen to you in the process, I have no control over what happens next. But I will do everything in my power to make sure your final requests are honored."

It was the first time Pyrrha smile since entering the room. She felt her soul dance and her overall mood improve. Now all she had to do was hope on her teammates to come through and fix any problems should such occur. Well, hope was bit of a useless word. It made no sense when she _knew_ she could trust in her team and partner to save her, unless, of course, she died in the process.

But at least she had a contingency plan if such an outcome happened.

Still, the champion was ultimately nervous. Thinking of the prospect of dying left a bitter taste in her mouth, one probably fouler than the stench Qrow's person reeked of. Because she believed in her leader to fix whatever happened to her Aura. But Death, Death was an endgame with no chance of coming back. And Ozpin must've seen through her internal struggle for him to clasp one hand over her shoulder.

His skin was warm against her cold flesh.

"Are you alright, friend Pyrrha?" Penny asked, sliding up against her. "My sensors are picking up your heartbeat's increasing tempo. Is something troubling you?"

Qrow _humphed_ and reached for his flask. "She's getting cold feet. Now that she knows what could happen, she's having doubts."

James sighed. "Must you always be so blunt, Qrow? We are asking for her to put her life on the line. Anybody would be nervous in this situation. I don't blame her."

He enjoyed a quick swig. "We don't have time to be making gingerbread houses, Jimmy. There's more than one person's life on the line. And besides, she's a big girl, she can handle it."

Shutting her eyes, Pyrrha tried to ignore their banter and rested her forehead on Amber's possible glass-coffin. She knew it was the right thing to put her life on the line. But she was scared—scared of what might happen. She was frightened about the idea of dying and leaving everything unsaid between her and her team. Just the thought made goose-bumps appear all over her skin.

So much for being the Invincible Girl. A coward was a more befitting title.

But life was unfair in the cruelest ways and needed to remind her of what was at stake. Why waking up in the morning was a gift and not a privilege. And its messenger had at least the audacity to compensate for her mismatch feelings with a deep frown of his own.

So there was that to look forward to.

Qrow walked up beside her and glared through the glass, feeling partially guilty for Amber's condition. He wouldn't blame himself for not being fast enough or something nonsensical as that. Sometimes life just threw curve balls and good people suffered. Nothing anyone could do about it. But in this monster-infested world, there had to be a reason to all the chaos.

"Look, kid, I'm not going to sugarcoat it for you. You getting into that machine could mean the difference between winning the fight against evil, or at least tipping the scales in our favor. But what might happen to you in the process, I couldn't tell ya. And neither could those eggheads back at Atlas. You could either end up completely fine... or dead within the next few minutes."

"Branwen!" James yelled. "Stop trying to—!"

"No." Pyrrha cut in, nerves bunched together like a coil. "That was all I needed to hear."

This man's surname reminded her that monsters existed outside and inside the walls protecting humanity. And if accepting this power—this curse—allowed for the chance of true peace to become tangible, she would jump into the fire with both her arms opened and heart strong. Anything to erase the wrongs of a dying world!

Pyrrha drew in a breath and walked to the adjacent incubator, acting coy with nerves of steel. She gently touched the glass to what might be her possible final resting place and released that breath. Without saying another word, she opened the chamber and quietly stepped inside, eyes focused on the Headmaster walking up the console in front of her. And before Ozpin could start the machine, she dangerously narrowed her eyes at the silver-haired man.

"You better keep your end of the deal."

Ozpin answered with a simple smile. "I'll do everything in my power to make it so. Don't you worry, Miss Nikos, I intend to keep my word."

Glynda Goodwitch stepped up and nodded alongside her friend. "That goes double for me. I'll make sure to keep him in line."

And with that the champion relaxed and allowed the process to continue. She closed her eyes when the machine hummed to life. She steadied her breathing when electricity began crackling. Her heart slowed when the outside noises began to fade into the background. And her soul lurched when a pull from another entered her domain.

The transfer—in her honest words—felt similar to eating one of her Fearless Leader's Aura shards. Meaning she couldn't quite put a phrase to go along with it, but it felt like her soul was full. Every inch was being covered in a tight blanket and it spread fast. By the time she noticed the neighboring Aura invade every cell in her body, Pyrrha, for barest of glimmers, felt the rush of power of an outside source than resembled nothing like Aura.

Then total blackness happened and her Aura was overshadowed by a tone of autumn.

Seeing the procedure complete, Ozpin shut off the machine and opened the chamber. Out stepped the Invincible Champion, disoriented with every one of her movements. She walked like an adolescent barely gaining the ability of their legs, as if the world was constantly tilting to her unequal balance. Almost zombie-like. And she stopped in front of Ozpin, blood-hair obscuring his vision from getting a good read of his promised Maiden.

"Pyrrha Nikos?"

Pushing back her locks, the eyes glaring back at the Huntsmen were anything but Pyrrha Nikos. The peculiar tint of green had diminished and turned two-shades darker. And Amber's nearby life-support flat-lined, effectively killing the mood.

"Not quite, Ozpin. It's me, Amber."

* * *

 **Author Notes:** So Jaune's Semblance in the show has to do with Aura manipulation? That's silly.


End file.
